Rolling Along – How is your Business Travelling?

A key objective of our business advisors is to get our clients thinking about their businesses in a holistic way.  We use a Principa model to help us with this.

Try this short exercise on your business.

Our goal is to get you thinking holistically about business and its performance.

The axes in the diagram below represent the many functions of a business and without a holistic approach the business owner can't expect to successfully achieve their objectives.

Let's say this is your business and the axes drawn here represent the different elements -

• (structure) your financial management plan
• (people and skills) your people and their skills
• (processes) your customers and how well you know them
• (strategy) your products/services
• (systems) your systems
• (culture) your management and leadership

Think about where you'd rate your business performance in each of these areas. On a scale of 1 to 5 – where 1 is shocking and 5 is excellent, mark an "x" where you think your business is sitting right now.

Ask yourself

• Do you have a good financial management plan in place? (structure)
• So your people, how engaged are they, what's their ability and attitude like? (people and skills)
• How well do you know your customers, how happy are they with you? (processes)
• Are your products/services meeting your customers needs, how do they compete in the marketplace? (strategy)
• How good are your systems? Are they producing consistent outcomes? (systems)
• And how would you rate your own management and leadership ability? (culture)

Just mark on each axis where you think you currently are.

Now let's think of these axes as spokes in a wheel and the wheel is your business, how smoothly can your business be rolling along if this is the wheel? It looks like quite a bumpy ride.

By completing this simple exercise you can quickly identify areas where you can improve business performance.

Our business advisors have been trained to work in each of these areas to assist clients in smoothing their ride.

If you would like some help please contact me at graham.crombie@ph.co.nz and I will link you with the most appropriate Polson Higgs staff member.

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Last updated: 25th August 2010 | 9:41 am