Is it time to tweak your business?

by Paul Van der Voort

For most of us, each morning we arrive at the office, we have multiple tasks to complete and we complete them as we have many times before.  We tend to do this day in and day out and rarely do we take the time to separate from our daily activities to look at both the strategic picture as well as our micro ways of completing our tasks and meeting the needs of our employees, customers and partners.  This is not a bad thing if the goals and objectives for the company are being met and these results represent maximum potential.  Obviously, if goals are not being met it’s time to tweak.  Typically passed over though is this idea that perhaps those goals do not fully reflect the opportunities right under our nose.  In that case, ignorance may be bliss but profit is not maximized.  Here to, change is called for.

Since we don’t want to waste unnecessary time involving analysis, soul-searching and changing processes, how can you take a quick pulse to determine whether there is untapped potential in the market, whether analysis, soul-searching and process changes are worthwhile and would result in increased profitability, in short; whether it is time to look to change?  Here are five simple tests.

First, are you growing?  If you’re business is not growing, it’s dying.  Why?  Because while everything may feel fine within the confines of your organizational walls there are always external market pressures beyond your control that over time will erode profits to nothing if no adjustments or actions are taken.  Competitors are always looking to beat you, to capture more market share, to increase their profits by increasing their efficiencies.  If you don’t keep up or, preferably lead the charge of change in your marketplace, you will begin to lose business and loose profit.  The only sustainable way to keep ahead of this predictable dynamic is to plan for it and to plan to adjust to avoid it.  You can’t just “try harder”.  You must plan growth in terms of changing your profit margins, gross profit, revenue, staff, customer base, product mix, marketing expenditures and tactics, etc.

Second, take a few minutes to reflect (and research if necessary) the other vendors in your industry.  Do you all look pretty much the same?  If so, it is time to change your business to capitalize on a wonderful opportunity to move ahead of your competition.  Rest assured, in every industry at some point someone will introduce some radical new idea, business practice, service, etc. that the market longs for, embraces and readily buys.  If that innovator is not you there will be but one course of action for you and your team.   You will have to scramble.  Your options will be expensive and very risky.  You will incur the costs of trying to respond effectively and, under the pressures to reactive rapidly, you may fail in that response.  Better to wisely, deliberately and efficiently introduce change and let your competition spend, scramble and stumble to chase you.

Third, look at your employees.  Are the vast majority of them excited about the work they’re doing?  If not, it’s time to shake up your business, not necessarily your staff.  If there is not something newer, better or more exciting to work toward, most of us fall into dutiful drudgery.  It’s your job to give your team something more to strive for.  It’s typically not very motivating to ask people to strive to do more of what they are currently doing.  That sounds really boring and is typically perceived as just heaping more on ones plate.  But asking staff to move from a current state to a better state (sounds like change to me) will bring out more from your team.

Fourth, has your business fundamentally changed in any way in the past year?  If not, please read on.

Fifth, are any significant changes being implemented now?  If not, it is time to add one.  Remember, if your business is not growing, it’s dying.  If you’re not changing, you are not likely to be growing consistently. You can grow for awhile sticking to your guns and just trying harder but that growth won’t last and it won’t generate stellar outcomes, only marginal ones.  Instead, you must plan to change and plan to grow.  This entails the review, planning and deliberate implementation of improvement initiatives in your organization.

The five minutes you’ve invested to read this article has already helped you.  It has taken you for a moment from your busy routine to help you focus on the larger reality of your company and it has almost certainly provided insight into whether or not you need to invest any more time looking at your current operation.

Paul Van der Voort is an organizational improvement advisor and Vice President with XMi Technology, an XMi company, and may be contacted at: (615) 403-0809, xmi.us.com or .