Understanding Where Your Business Is Now

It’s tempting to start writing a ‘to do’ list, but it’s important to understand the current position of your business first. Otherwise, you could be a real-life example of the old joke “If I was going there, I wouldn’t start from here”.

Your business might have grown organically with your customer base, systems, and processes simply developing over time. This is the ideal opportunity to assess how you got to where you are before you start to plan where to go next.

We will look at the things that affect your business, both internally and externally. This will include a realistic review of your current and potential customers, your capabilities, and the wider business environment.

What Challenges Do You Face?

It’s important to understand how the products and services you provide solve your customers’ problems. You might have a core product and complementary supporting services or products. Do you know which are most popular and profitable?

When was the last time you reviewed your main competitors to see how they do things, what they charge and what their reviewers say?

If you work with distributors or other third parties do you know how well they meet your current needs and support your brand? Have you ever thought about trying alternatives?

There might be changes on the horizon that could affect your business, not least the availability of materials, increasing costs, and skills shortages. Have you got a plan in place to meet these challenges?

What We Will Do

Through a combination of exercises and discussion, you will be able to understand what changes are needed in your business to achieve both your personal and business goals.

As part of the process, we will carry out a SWOT analysis to understand your business strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats you might face in the short- and medium-term.

This is much more than a paper exercise and we will take time to properly research and understand your whole business context. It might involve your suppliers, employees, distributors and customers too.

What Will Happen

Situation analysis must add value, so the results must be simple and practical to use. It will provide a clear picture of your current business position and it will show you where you will need to focus to move forwards.

It will help you to clarify the things you must do, including further analysis, to create a practical and workable business plan. Most importantly, it will help you to prioritise your actions.

WHAT DIFFERENCE WILL IT MAKE?

Once we understand your current business position we can start to build on your strengths and opportunities and address any weaknesses and threats.

This could range from reviewing your prices to reducing your inventory.

So, for example, to achieve your plans for business growth you might realise that you will need a business development manager who can identify and take advantage of new opportunities.

If you need to spend more time meeting customers and preparing specifications and quotes, you might need extra administrative support.