Assess the health of your business

As the economy stays tight for many businesses, now is the time to carry out a health check to look at what is and what is not happening in a healthy way.

Its easy to focus on the day-to-day, but taking a short amount of time to work on the business rather than work in the business can pay dividends.

Many smaller firms talk to their accountants on a regular basis, and sure this can help, but its not just financial health you need to keep an eye on. While hiring business consultants may be the “gold standard”, that is not always realistic, however taking time to look at the firm in a structured way can be.

Tools like the BIR – Business Improvement Review, can act as a catalyst for change and business improvement, sure its best if managed by a consultant – but it can work well being self managed or used with your accountant.

The BIR takes a rapid snapshot of your business, its systems and the way it reacts with suppliers and customers – as well as staff, and provides the agenda to see where any opportunities exist for improvement.

Using a simple, quick and yet effective data collection approach, within minutes you and your managers can be looking at the current performance of your business, agree priorities and put in simple actions for change. Then 6-12 months later you can re-run the process and benchmark your progress and evaluate the improvements made.