Adapting Your Business: Why Constant Assessments Lead to Effective Development
In order to develop your business and ensure that it adapts to the needs of your customers, you need to constantly assess and review the way your business is performing.
In this post, we’ll provide a detailed breakdown of exactly why constantly evaluating your business can help you develop and reach your customers more effectively, but first let’s take a look at one example from big business where constant assessment has fueled growth to world-leading levels.
Continuous Assessment: The Apple Success Story
Even the world’s largest multi-national conglomerations start as small businesses and one-man operations. Apple, for example, was founded in 1976 by three men (and only Wozniak built their first product). However, fast-forward around 40 years and Apple became the first company in the world to record a market capitalization of $1 trillion, and analysts suggest it will also be the first to reach the $1.5 trillion mark, too.
So, how did Apple do it? Well, they constantly assessed their businesses and adapted. After all, their original product was simply a computer, but their market research showed them diversification was the route to success.
Think, if Apple never adapted, we’d perhaps never have modern smartphones like the iPhone, tablets like the iPad and the ability to pay contactless through our phones with services like Apple Pay. Apple became much more than a computing company, and now it’s also the world’s largest music retailer, because it adapted successfully. As a company that never stood still and always looked for ways to improve, it overtook Nokia in the smartphone market and overtook major labels like Warner, Universal and EMI as a music seller.
Now, success on the scale of Apple is rare. But, if you follow their model of continually assessing and reinventing, you can continually change and reinvent your business for the better.
Simple Ways Assessment Can Fuel Growth and Change in Your Business
As the owner of a small to medium-sized business, your brain is probably going a mile a minute. After all, you’re probably so involved in the day-to-day running of operations that you find it hard to focus on where you want to be next month, quarter or year.
However, by taking a step back and running a business assessment, you’ll be able to develop some key strategies that allow your business to move forward and grow. After all, conducting a business assessment can:
- Provide you and other members of your senior leadership team with clarity about your business operations
- Help you learn about the current state of your business
- Allow you to create actionable plans for the short, medium and long term
- Promote strategic actions based on evidence
- Identify areas for your business to strengthen
- Help you identify ways you can reach your audience more effectively
So, with these key benefits in mind, how should you conduct your business assessments?
Embrace Proactive Change
When conducting a business assessment, many business owners get a little defensive, believing that it will merely point out what’s wrong with their business. However, this is the wrong mindset, and you should instead consider how conducting a business assessment can help you embrace proactive change.
Embracing proactive change will keep you ahead of your competitors. After all, you can’t close the gaps between your business and its competitors if you don’t know where those gaps are. Plus, if you fail to change and spot new trends, you could go the way of Kodak. Standing still will always leave you behind as others embrace emerging opportunities.
Consider How Technology Could Eliminate Time Wastage and Promote Efficiency
While conducting your business assessment, you should place a specific focus on time wastage and inefficient processes. After all, every second your salaried employees spend not working costs your business money. So, look at purchasing software that allows your employees to log their time so you know what they’re doing, and assess how you can embed technology into your organization.
In addition to improving internal processes, look at how technology can help you reach your target audience. For example, using a tool like Lusha for recruiters is likely to help you reach candidates for new roles more effectively than cold calling would. Similarly, outreaching to your customers through social channels and using AI is likely to be far more effective than traditional print advertising.
Finally, consider the way your employees work and store data. One way you could work more effectively is to transport your operations to The Cloud, and potentially even go Cloud Native to boost your productivity further.
Technology can improve all aspects of a business, so treat it as the growth-fueling friend it is.
Conduct a Thorough SWOTT Analysis
A SWOTT analysis is a favorite with business school graduates and it assesses your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and trends.
By asking all of your staff members to conduct this analysis (not just your senior leadership team), you’ll get an accurate assessment of your business’s current state and the ways you can improve.
Repeat
Conducting a business assessment can give you an accurate overview of the health of your business. However, it only provides you with a snapshot of how your business was performing at a singular point in time. As a result, as your business changes and grows, you need to continually assess to make sure you’re delivering on your goals. This way, you can make all changes sustainable.
In conclusion, by continually evaluating your business, you’ll be able to proactively change for the better. So, try to embed a cycle of continuous assessment and evaluation in your organization. If you do, you’ll find it easier than ever to stay ahead of your competitors and embrace Apple’s growth mindset.
We hope you enjoyed this promoted piece as much as we did!
