In the 1990’s Australia like many western industrial countries introduced the management philosophy of Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management (TQM). It was all about Plan, Do, Check and Act and understanding and identifying the various processes within your business.
With the current economic adjustment going on across the world, planning and monitoring the plan, is vital to the success of your business.
Planning in your business will involve six key areas of focus for the management team. Let’s look at those areas now.
1. Forecasting – whether it is forecasting for seasonal changes, such as summer to winter, or the current financial change, management needs to regularly review sales and expense figures, and to make the necessary changes based on current conditions,
2. Product or Service Review/s – create a unique package in your offering – something your competitors will find hard to match. Do you regularly review your products and/or services, internally and externally, via customer survery’s, to ensure a good turnover with maximum return/s?
3. Development – do you investigate developing better systems or products for your current and future customer base?
4. Marketing – many organisations develop a marketing plan, but fail to measure the return on investment of their actions. Do you know what return on investment you are getting from your marketing activities?
5. Budgeting – the first questionto ask yourself. Do you have budgets for both income and expenses, and if so how often do you review your progress? Do you display the budgets for all to see and work towards, ie a target?
6. Business Plan – the business planning process allows the business to analyse and document the business, sales, market and competitors, along with identifying the businesses strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats in the marketplace. Just like any planning activity, this process is more about the journey rather than the destination. When was the last time you and or your management team, read or updated your business plan?
Good planning is behind every success; luck has very little to do with it. The people who were “at the right place at the right time” had mostly followed a trail of “right places”, knowing that through perseverance, something would give in their favour.
Next week, we will look at management and its impact on cash flow within your small or medium-sized business.
Reference: Bright Ideas for Small Businesses – how to get your Cash Flowing efficiently, Charisse Gray, 2009.
