Business Re-Engineering
In uncertain times businesses face tough situations. Most of them go about doing the same routine until the situation around them eases or they bite the dust. But proactive managements assess the situation clearly and take corrective steps. Steve Report has written a well-meaning article on the same subject. Steve says
“What are “The 5 Steps To Stop Insane Management From Driving Business Into The Ground?”
1. Have a very clear profit plan at each line item of business performance. Measure actual performance against plan and have clear accountability for achieving the plan line item by line item. To implement this you must have timely, accurate and relevant information. No excuses…must have.
2. When people who are accountable for line item performance consistently fail to meet the stated goals, replace them. Period!
3. The number one function in a business that will be the subject of most of the excuses is sales. These excuses come from people who do not understand how to market to a consumer who places ever increasing importance on relationships. Why do you think the community building sites like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook are in the top ten most highly visited sites globally? According to Alexa, YouTube is 3 , MySpace is 6 and Facebook is 8 ) Every business must have a relationship driven marketing strategy and then implement it. See Relationship Marketing below.
4. Always be evaluating the market including on line competitors. I wonder if Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL in retrospect would have done anything different when Google first came to market? No company is immune from being seriously weekend by competition. I look at the drugstore landscape. I live in Florida where competition is very active particularly for pharmacy prescriptions. A new format of drugstores was introduced not that long ago by Walgreens, CVS, and others with positioning of buildings with 24 hour drive through pharmacies on high cost real estate. Two things have happened with those changes. Prices skyrocketed to pay for real estate and relationships with the pharmacy customer has almost become extinct. Within this landscape I am aware of several privately held drugstores doing very well because of their attention to customer relationships.
5. Don’t push a boulder up hill. Some companies were never meant to be. People start companies or buy existing companies because they think it is a good idea. The only opinion that matter is the market. If your business was not all that strong in the past and you are basically doing everything right, the best action to stopping the profit leaks may mean closing the doors. If you are not sure Contact Me.”
