The future of work has arrived! And everything has changed: we now work, produce, collaborate and buy differently than before. The quicker small and mid-sized business owner grasps this and adapts, the better they will be able to compete and secure future growth.
What can we learn from others?
Main reasons for business failures
Business failures are at an all-time high despite the amazing opportunities of the 21st century. Let’s look at the common causes of failures and how to prevent the same.
Secrets of the most successful leaders
Most successful businesses have a few fundamentals in common. Let’s try to understand what they do exceptionally well to continuously succeed and stay profitable.
How to ensure your business success
Some quick steps you can adapt to your business world quickly to ensure you are able to scale rapidly and overcome your challenges in the marketplace.
Are you fully prepared for the changes ahead?
The next five years will radically transform the business landscape; with multiple human-centric innovations converging, there will be an exponential increase in user experience, business channels and value. It is critical that business leaders prepare themselves to best leverage from the exciting opportunities ahead or risk being left behind.
Our consultants have extensive experience in championing change and channeling business focus to areas of maximum potential.
Sign up for a free 45 mins preparedness assessment with us to review your business context, your preparedness for the changes ahead and identify areas that you can best leverage to succeed.
Business Advisory and Consulting
Our approach is simple – every business can reach its potential by a fundamental three step process
- Understand and manage weakness
- Identify and prioritise on growth opportunities
- Learn and operationalise the skill set and mindset to succeed
We help you reach your potential by
- reviewing your business fundamentals for areas of weakness or oversight
- map out the top industry trends that can be leveraged in your market
- risk assessment on potential disruptors and recommendations
- action planning, glide-path and technology consulting
- offering personalised business coaching, business advisory and consulting
- having intensive workshops on focus areas – weakness, opportunities, leadership
- publishing original content on emerging topics and recommended content
Everything you need to learn in business, you can learn from the success and failures of others.
Why does a business fail?
Business failures cause world economy in trillions every year in addition to the human and social cost. Over 90% of businesses in the world never reach a million US$ annual revenue and the top 1% of businesses have a combined revenue in excess of the remaining 99%. Preventing business failures and their resultant impact on societies is one of the biggest challenges in the world today. This field is very well researched by Universities and Governments around the world and the key findings are as below.
Lack of GENERAL MANAGEMENT expertise – Running a business in modern times is a complex venture. Usually, the family or the business owner is very good in a few aspects of business and lacks expertise in many other facets. Over time, failures cumulate and becomes too big to overcome.
PACE OF CHANGE vs industry – customers demand the best value in the market. In times of fast-paced changes in the industry, innovating ahead of the market and continuously improving the value proposition is essential. Those who fail to master the pace of change, are bound to fail.
LEADERSHIP skills to lead in an increasingly complex and fast-evolving industry landscape. With changing labour models, increasing technology trends and evolving buying behaviours, it is critical to invest in ongoing management development by learning and experimenting.
How do the biggest companies succeed
a) Relentless focus on the business fundamentals
VALUE – delivers superior value at a price point appealing to customers
PROFITABILITY – Ongoing profitability for sustenance and reinvestment
RELATIONSHIPS – A true partnership with customers, suppliers, employees and society at large
b) State of Continuous Transformation
One thing common across all the largest companies is the constant state of transformation which they are in. These businesses want to always surprise their customers with higher value offerings. It is no surprise that the top six of the most valuable companies in the world today are Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft. The fact that four of these companies were launched in the last 25 years (remaining two in the mid-1970’s), highlights the scale of reinvention and transformation they underwent in their journey to the top.
c) Focus on learning and talent development
To be the best in your business, you have to know a lot more than your competition and your customers. Successful companies ensure they remain at the top by building a strong learning and people development DNA within their culture. A significant part of their income is invested every year to ensure that the most relevant training programs are deployed and that the leadership team spends adequate time upgrading their competence. Leadership development focus also ensures a strong succession pipeline and the ability to pursue new market opportunities with internal talent.
How you can ensure your business success
a) Holistic management - ensure regular focus on the nine fundamentals
Design
Design every aspect of business for superior holistic customer experience
Operations
Cost-effective and robust no surprise delivery model
Customers
Focus on converting customers to promoters by delighting them
Process
Well defined processes fully aligned to the business objectives
Strategy
Fully aligned with stakeholders ensuring on-going growth to potential
Suppliers
Partner to optimize go-to-market ability and to innovate faster
Innovation
A culture striving to improve continuously across all aspects.
Project Management
Discipline and expertise to actively implement the approved strategy
Employees
Fully engaged for business success and growing together to potential
Ensure regular review of these areas to ensure your business fundamentals are strong
- Design – every aspect of business for superior holistic customer experience
- Processes – well defined and fully aligned to the business objectives
- Innovation – a culture striving to improve continuously across all aspects
- Operations – cost-effective and robust no surprise delivery model
- Strategy – fully aligned with stakeholders ensuring on-going growth to potential
- Project management – discipline and expertise to actively implement the approved strategy
- Customers – focus converting customers to promoters by delighting them
- Suppliers – partner to optimize go-to-market ability and to innovate
- Employees – fully engaged for business success and growing together to potential
b) Focus on growth - Identify one or two areas to actively scale
Choose one or two areas among the nine fundamentals to actively build expertise on and grow. For example, the top six companies in the world have clear areas of focus which helped them scale tremendously.
Examples of focus on fundamental strengths – Apple focus on design, Amazon on customers, Alibaba on Suppliers, Alphabet on Innovation, Microsoft on Strategy, and Facebook on Customers
Would be ideal for you to do a self-assessment to identify areas of the best opportunities based on your customer preferences, business strengths and industry trends. Once focus areas are established, it will be critical to build a technology road-map to ensure maximum impact and results.
c) Leadership scaling and learning
High-quality content for learning is available easily today. Courses from Harvard, Wharton, Stanford and other top universities are available on-demand online. It is critical that leaders spend more time building their leadership skills and grow their business competencies. The same approach should be taken with the employees so that they are regularly up-skilling themselves for the demands of the new ways of doing business. Its good to have successful mentors from the industry or business ecosystem to help expand on the theoretical knowledge with practical insights.
Investing in a business advisory service or a business coach is highly recommended given that large businesses spend millions of dollars on getting specialists to advise on their growth and scaling up.