{"id":42,"date":"2020-07-01T13:45:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T13:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/?p=42"},"modified":"2020-07-01T13:46:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T13:46:24","slug":"fatal-business-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/fatal-business-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Fatal Business Diseases\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A business also develops disease\u2026some 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.<\/p>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<p>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 <strong>immediate action<\/strong> to start the healing process!<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><u>The Diagnosis<\/u><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Just as chest pains are a manifestation of a heart condition, business diseases make their presence known from symptoms such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cash Flow shortages<\/li>\n<li>Sales have levelled out or are falling<\/li>\n<li>Competitors are making inroads into your customer base<\/li>\n<li>Business is stagnating<\/li>\n<li>Best staff are leaving<\/li>\n<li>Expensive capital equipment is underutilised<\/li>\n<li>Insufficient financial resource to replace aging\/worn-out equipment<\/li>\n<li>Overheads seem out of control<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are many more symptoms, which you will recognise if you examine the disease.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><strong><u>The Diseases<\/u><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As with any living creature, there are some diseases, which attack early in life, and some, which attack much later.<\/p>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Business has <strong>lost its edge<\/strong> (success has probably softened its muscles)<\/li>\n<li>The Business has become <strong>over-confident<\/strong> (it no longer sees any dangers or threats to its position)<\/li>\n<li>The employees <strong>fear the boss more than the competition<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Business has a <strong>high<\/strong> (unhealthy) <strong>propensity for risk<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>There is a <strong>lust for growth and size<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Business strategies are being dictated by the latest <strong>management fashions<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>A <strong>poor Board of Directors<\/strong> presides<\/li>\n<li>There is a <strong>toxic corporate culture<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Employees are treated as slaves<\/strong> (an expense and not an investment)<\/li>\n<li>The Business has <strong>no clear direction<\/strong> (there has been a loss of focus)<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Customer\/Client mix is skewed<\/strong> (too much reliance is being placed upon too few Customers\/Clients)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key management responsibilities have been abdicated<\/strong> to lower level staff (they have given the safe keys away)<\/li>\n<li>The Business is <strong>over-trading<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>intelligence gathering<\/strong> machinery for both the market and competitors is not functioning<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>right questions<\/strong> are not being asked<\/li>\n<li>There is <strong>greater focus on Profit<\/strong> generation <strong>rather than Cash<\/strong> generation\/preservation<\/li>\n<li><strong>Instant gratification<\/strong> has replaced delayed gratification<\/li>\n<li><strong>Innovation <\/strong>has died (there is no injection of fresh ideas)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li><strong><u>The Cures<\/u><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If you want a \u2018quick fix\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, there are ways to ensure that the Business stays healthy and these are known as the \u2018Seeds of Business Success\u2019, which we will deal with in next month\u2019s post.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that <em>internal misjudgements<\/em> are six times more likely to cause business failure than external factors. The message is clear \u2026 keep objective help close at hand, and if you do not have it, get it without delay.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>QUOTATION:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany times the difference between failure and success is doing something nearly right \u2026 or doing it exactly right\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unknown<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>ALL CONTENTS OF THIS E-MAIL ARE COPYRIGHTED BY The Noma Asil SA Trust. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION OF ANY PART OF THIS DOCUMENT IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF The Noma Asil SA Trust.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalised investment, legal, professional, or medical advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under any laws to address your situation in any of these areas. No communication by our employees should be deemed as personalised investment, professional, legal, or medical advice.<\/p>\n<p>Advice and information provided in this e-mail is not intended as, nor should it be considered as substitute for, legal, accounting, or other similar professional advice or services. Should such advice or services be appropriate, readers are advised to seek such advice or service from the appropriate professional. Further, The Noma Asil SA Trust does not accept any responsibility or liability for individual reader\u2019s interpretations, uses or applications of information provided, and readers of this e-mail automatically indemnify The Noma Asil SA Trust from any such liability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A business also develops disease\u2026some 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 &#8230;.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class=\" default\" href=\"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/fatal-business-diseases\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-operations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}