Are your business operations aligned to take advantage of market opportunities?
Conduct an honest evaluation of your business’s ability to acquire and retain customers in executing against a plan. Start with your competitive analysis where you compared your company’s strengths and weaknesses to see what needs work. Be sure to look at all functional areas from marketing, sales, and human resources to research & development, manufacturing, finance, accounting, legal, and the other departments important to your business’s success.
Here’s what you want to uncover…
- What resources – employees, equipment, and financial capital – do you have available to meet forecast needs?
- Is your business structure conducive to attracting resources and minimizing tax liabilities for maximizing profits?
- Do you have the right people managing your organization and if not, can you attract the talent needed?
- How responsive is your manufacturing capability to demand? Can you ramp up or eliminate excess capacity quickly to meet demand?
- Are there partners you can leverage or distribution channels available to help you deliver your product to market faster or better?
- Are there any legal restrictions that may hinder your go-to-market plans – intellectual property, commerce, or personnel related issues?
- Do you have sales people to follow-up on leads generated by your marketing efforts and customer service support to ensure customers are happy?
Based on your market research and your business assessment, create a list of long-term goals and start setting objectives for the near term with respect to operations covering IT support, accounting/finance, legal, manufacturing, sales, marketing, customer/technical support, and human resource issues. Depending upon the size or nature of your business, these capabilities may need to be outsourced.
Discover more…
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- de Jong, Marc and Menno van Dijk. “Disrupting Beliefs: A New Approach to Business-Model Innovation.” McKinsey & Company. Last modified July 2015. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/disrupting-beliefs-a-new-approach-to-business-model-innovation.
- “Legal News & Information.” JD Supra, LLC. Accessed January 4, 2024. http://www.jdsupra.com/law-news/.
- Pofeldt, Elaine. “5 Creative Ways To Fund Your Small Business.” TIME Magazine. Last modified May 26, 2015. http://time.com/money/3996252/management-how-to-run-company-remotely/.
- Parinello, Tony. “How to Better Manage Your Sales Process.” Entrepreneur Media, Inc. Accessed January 4, 2024. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/70834#.
- Rayess, Randy. “5 Basic Needs of Virtual Workforces.” Harvard Business School Publishing. Last modified March 17, 2015. https://hbr.org/2015/03/5-basic-needs-of-virtual-workforces.
- Sparkman, David. “Back-to-Work Protocol for Manufacturers Post-Covid-19.” Industry Week. Last modified May 4, 2020. https://www.industryweek.com/covid19/article/21130407/backtowork-protocol-for-manufacturers-postcovid19.
- Steinberg, Scott. “7 Habits of Highly Successful Businesses.” CNBC LLC. Last modified January 12, 2015. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/12/7-habits-of-highly-successful-businesses-commentary.html.
- “The Essential Guide to Crowdfunding.” Indiegogo, Inc. Accessed January 4, 2024. https://learn.indiegogo.com/the-essential-guide-to-crowdfunding/.
- “Understanding and Developing Organizational Culture.” SHRM. Accessed January 4, 2024. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/understanding-developing-organizational-culture.aspx.
