A business also develops disease…some are fatal, and some can be cured! The important issue is to diagnose the disease, take remedial action, and cure the disease before it takes hold and kills the business. Few business diseases cannot be cured if they are caught early enough.
What are these diseases? How do you identify them? How do you know whether they are fatal to your business? What do you need to do to cure them?
Very few business owners ask these sorts of questions, simply because they do not recognise the fact that businesses get sick and can die. In this issue we name the most common diseases. It is up to you to diagnose your business but be honest in determining whether your business is at risk and if it is, take immediate action to start the healing process!
- The Diagnosis
Just as chest pains are a manifestation of a heart condition, business diseases make their presence known from symptoms such as:
- Cash Flow shortages
- Sales have levelled out or are falling
- Competitors are making inroads into your customer base
- Business is stagnating
- Best staff are leaving
- Expensive capital equipment is underutilised
- Insufficient financial resource to replace aging/worn-out equipment
- Overheads seem out of control
There are many more symptoms, which you will recognise if you examine the disease.
- The Diseases
As with any living creature, there are some diseases, which attack early in life, and some, which attack much later.
There are specific causes for each disease, but we will not be detailing these in this post as they will all be dealt with in weeks to come. Recognising the disease, however, is important at this point:
- The Business has lost its edge (success has probably softened its muscles)
- The Business has become over-confident (it no longer sees any dangers or threats to its position)
- The employees fear the boss more than the competition
- The Business has a high (unhealthy) propensity for risk
- There is a lust for growth and size
- Business strategies are being dictated by the latest management fashions
- A poor Board of Directors presides
- There is a toxic corporate culture
- Employees are treated as slaves (an expense and not an investment)
- The Business has no clear direction (there has been a loss of focus)
- The Customer/Client mix is skewed (too much reliance is being placed upon too few Customers/Clients)
- Key management responsibilities have been abdicated to lower level staff (they have given the safe keys away)
- The Business is over-trading
- The intelligence gathering machinery for both the market and competitors is not functioning
- The right questions are not being asked
- There is greater focus on Profit generation rather than Cash generation/preservation
- Instant gratification has replaced delayed gratification
- Innovation has died (there is no injection of fresh ideas)
- The Cures
If you want a ‘quick fix’, forget it! Curing a disease which has developed over a long period of time will either take radical action (surgery) or treated with medication, which will take place over a longer period. Both are sometimes necessary.
Obviously, there are ways to ensure that the Business stays healthy and these are known as the ‘Seeds of Business Success’, which we will deal with in next month’s post.
Remember that internal misjudgements are six times more likely to cause business failure than external factors. The message is clear … keep objective help close at hand, and if you do not have it, get it without delay.
QUOTATION:
“Many times the difference between failure and success is doing something nearly right … or doing it exactly right”
Unknown
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