Driving Performance Improvement by Focusing on the Right Numbers
By Andrew Malins – Affinity Accounting Plus
The dramatic changes in the Brisbane Markets over the last 10 years have been as a result of various forces, the chain store dominance and 2011 flood to name but two. If there’s one guarantee in life, it’s that change will continue.
The businesses which have failed over that time (whether in the markets or outside) have been the ones that did not know or understand what their numbers were telling them. There is a huge discrepancy between the best and worst performing businesses and the best way to improve your results is to monitor and focus your business in a similar way that elite sporting teams do.
The difference is that unlike sporting teams, you don’t currently have the stats to compare yourself with your competition. Can you imagine the Broncos coaching staff not looking at their missed tackles, dropped ball etc versus their opposition?
Affinity Accounting Plus are commencing a benchmarking study of the Brisbane Markets agents and wholesalers to provide specific industry data to assist participating businesses drive performance improvement.
The study is completely confidential and other than our firm, no one will receive information identifying any individual business but industry averages and best practice benchmarks will be available to participants.
The resulting report will enable you to compare your results to where you should be and take action to ensure you move up or stay at the top of the “ladder”. Like great sporting teams, the results will only come from working on the right areas, time and having the right talent on board.
A simple approach to business improvement that any business owner can follow is:
1. Identify the key performance areas requiring improvement
2. Set target performance standards for those areas (aka KPIs)
3. Focus your team’s attention on the focus areas for intensive improvement (usually over a 90 day period)
4. Monitor results and make adjustments as required to improve the focus areas
5. Assess results and identify next area for improvement
Of course there’s a lot more to building a great business than these simple steps and when advising businesses on long term improvement and strategy, we have a large range of tools, books, templates and pro-forma available, free, for all BML tenants to assist their business to perform at the top of their game.
To get involved, please click here and fill out the online enquiry form to register your interest