Business Values

Operating a business with 5 C’s

There are many values involved across the spectrum of business management but here are a few thoughts to consider in your operation.

Core competency – businesses in the never ending search for growth often stray outside of their core competencies. I suggest you concentrate on what your strengths allow you to do. Too often I have seen the eagerness to expand lead to an acquisition of a business that the entrepreneur knows little about. This can lead to huge wastes of resources, both time and money, trying to integrate a business that does not fit.

Culture – operating in today’s world of integration and worldwide business requires sensitivity to not only establishing a well understood and communicated business culture but an awareness of how our workforce composition understands, interprets, and reacts to management decisions. It may be important to appoint an individual to interact with employees and communicate company policy. This can help minimize offending an employee unnecessarily. Employees too need to look at the broad picture and not expect individual rights to override the common practice of the business.

Competition – understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your competition is a major key to success. Know when to act, react, and take advantage of the market place is paramount to improving results. Stay flexible and be ready to move when opportunity is there.

Capacity – managing the limit of the organizations resources helps maintain a balance between meeting demands of the marketplace and ensuring there are no bottlenecks to any surge in need for additional product or service. Lack of planning can affect financial performance and impede meeting customer needs. Accurate forecast not only of demand but availability of production capacity and resources are the mainstays of strong performance.

Cash – must conclude with “king of the C’s….. cash. Good cash management is a Core and foundation of any business.  Cash flow management is paramount and every CEO should be aware no less than monthly of this key reporting tool.  Good cash management can provide the flexibility to move in the marketplace to capitalize on opportunity. Poor cash management can put unnecessary strain on resources and stress on management.

There are other topics to be covered but these are some of the C’s worth Caring about.