One regular reader of this blog asked to know the tools she can use to grow the productivity of her Business.
Winning Entrepreneurs, Business owners and CEOs utilize six time tested tools to grow their business productivity. They are still available to grow your business productivity.
STRATEGIC PLANS: Strategic plans are documents that define the strategy or direction for a business and provide the basis for making decisions on allocating its scarce resources to pursue its chosen strategy over a given period of time. It answers the following questions: What do we do, for whom do we do it and how do we excel or outperform our competition. So do you have a strategic plan for your business? If not, create one. A well written and implemented strategic plan turns the funds used in developing it into an investment with a high ROI.
BUSINESS PLANS: Business plans are formal statements of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed achievable and the plan for reaching them. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals. Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, clients, or larger community. Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused business plans target goals that are important to stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders, e.g., investors, customers or donors. For government agencies, the external stakeholders are: IMF, World Bank, various economic agencies of the United Nations and development Banks. Internally focused Business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization or even the creation of a new business out of the existing one. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced score card or a list of critical success factors. Businesses that have business plans generally do far better than businesses without such plans. So, do you have a business plan for your business? If not create one to accelerate your business productivity growth.
TRAINING: Entrepreneurs, Business owners and CEOs use training and business coaching to upscale skills or close any value gaps in their businesses. Different phases of businesses require different skill-sets to optimize performance. Every business skill needs to be updated or retooled every three years. Do not use skills acquired five years ago to run the business of today. If you do, you will be losing your business competitiveness with resultant lower performance relative to potential.
Are there skills gaps that are imperilling your business productivity growth? Are your people getting the requisite training to grow their productivity? Go training hunting to acquire the skills that grow businesses. In your choice of training, be careful that cost is not your main consideration. Value to your business and people should be the main factor.
Remember: to employ people and not to train them is like sending soldiers to the warfront without basic implements of war(You can guess what will happen to them). Not re-training them on a regular basis is like asking today’s farmer to farm with cutlasses and hoes: you can guess the impact on productivity!
BOOKS: A book is a set of collection of written or printed information about a particular subject matter. To grow your business productivity, read at least a book per week. Read books not only on business but also on your or other people’s faith, politics, economics and even Autobiographies. If possible write your own book. Don’t be a net consumer of global information. Be a contributor to global information. Writing a book on your area of expertise will help position you as an expert in your area of business. This will help drive the growth of your business. Encourage your people to contribute to global information. If possible, you can partner with them to create books that will change your industry and country
PEOPLE: Yes, one is too small a number for higher business productivity (Ask John Maxwell). You need people to grow your productivity: your employees, strategic partners and outside help (some call them consultants). People make dreams come to fruition. So in the quest to grow the productivity of her business, the Success conscious entrepreneur, business owner or CEO not only cultivates first class relations with her people but she also empowers them to make her business succeed and reach its desired destination.
So do you want to optimize your business productivity? Empower and equip your people with the necessary skills, tools and network to grow your business. Remember: businesses do not fail. People do!
TECHNOLOGY: Technology is another veritable tool that grows business productivity. Successful entrepreneurs optimize the use of technology-soft and hardware-to create greater value for stakeholders of their businesses
The Author, Dr. Kennedy Ononaeke, a business growth strategist is the Managing Consultant /CEO of Winning Edge Consulting Limited, a healthcare consulting and training firm. For a free complimentary consultation on how to grow your business productivity, call him on 2348035875796 or email: [email protected].
For Free Business Success Newsletter, TIPS, Go to: www.winningedge.com.ng
This post first appeared on GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITH Kennedy Ononaeke, please read the originial post: here
