Do you often wonder about your business if you are doing the right thing or not? How to establish progress and put them into action? Or just how your business benchmarks from your competitors?
Whatever may be your concern it is really essential to have a health check on your business. Spending time to audit your business, casually, is a good idea to obtain the results you need to make your business succeed.
Business health check, what is it?
A business health check is a standard assessment that a business owner conduct on a regular basis as a way to ensure the overall functionality of the business. The main concept here is to increase awareness about the health status of the business such as stability, good relationship towards the customers and staff, competitive edge over the other, sustainability, and success.
Performing a health check on your business can be difficult especially if you do not know where to start. To guide you, here are four vital business areas you can perform a health check on your business:
1.) Financials are Important. Conduct a detailed diagnostic test on your business which includes valuations, budgets, key indicators, growth factor, and your business as a whole. Companies basically undergo various life cycles (just like us):
- Growth: Growing companies needs the right personnel, structures, and marketing strategy in place as a way to generate additional earnings.
- Maintenance: Maintenance is about maximising profits while minimizing costs.
- Maturity: For mature companies, having a robust financial system is important. This would then be easier for you to sell your business when the right time comes.
2.) Understand the Risks. This would involve the inventory and operations, products, and risk management. Get a professional help to evaluate your internal controls and distinguish fragile areas where errors can manifest. In the long term, this can save you lots of money from hefty fines and payments.
3.) Check Your Inventory and Operations. Check the processes of your business from start to finish to figure out ways on how to enhance them and eventually cut costs. An average of $20,000 lost per year from small businesses due to inadequate inventory and operations. Using obsolete, old aged or perhaps mislaid inventory on your records can be a serious loss for small businesses. Make sure that the technology you will be utilizing works well with your in-house system, and is easy as well as right for the budget. You don’t necessarily have to own a fancy ride, or the sort – the important thing is how you will make your business flourish.
4.) Have a Strategy In Place. Most of the small businesses highly depend on their vendors to make sales and keep the show running. If this is the philosophy that you have in place, then it won’t give value to potential buyers. You need to think outside the box and think about the bigger picture.
“The success of your business lies on your decisions and you must think of long-term strategy and cost savings.”
Now that you have the guides on performing a health check on your business, here is my challenge to you, as a business owner:
How can you make your business do better? Also, how do you separate your company from its competitors?
Tell me what you think about this challenge by sending me an e-mail at jeemar@teamvilan. Looking forward on your response.
Remember, when performing a health check on your business, make sure you follow these simple steps. Do not just jump from one end to another. A well-maintained business is a happy business.