Page 23 - BUILDING BETTER BUSINESSES, FOR A BETTER ECONOMY -( David White - DRG )

ƒ Real time reporting is required, which includes budgeting, defining
current and projected cashflow requirements, and considering
“what-if” risk scenarios
ƒ Margins must be managed and understood in their totality. Seemingly simple
discounts have a huge effect on operational costs of the business, and thus
impact the bottom line of the business

Operations

A clearly defined “quality assurance” process methodology needs to be documented and
communicated to all members in the organisation
ƒ The quality assurance process needs to be as simple as possible, but to ensure the desired
outcome is achieved
ƒ It needs to include industry best practice, common sense, and comply with regulations
ƒ It needs to be clearly defined in an operational policy and procedure manual, have associated
training modules and directive corrective action reports, and where errors (or deviations) occur,
it needs to have a root cause analysis process of identification, correction, training, and updates
changed to new versions in the policy and procedure manual
ƒ All quality assurance updates need to be communicated and understood by not only the
operational teams, but also by the entire organisation who commit to its aims and objectives, and
promise to stakeholders

Legal

Continual monitoring and adherence to changing legislation is essential for the business’s
wellbeing.
ƒ Service level agreements need to reflect the operational processes defined in customer and
supplier relationships. These need to be revisited often, to ensure they reflect the current status of
client and supplier expectations and understanding
ƒ Company registration documents, licencing agreements, annual financial statements, etc, need to
be current at all times
ƒ Governance standard need to be understood and applied in the business

TO RECAP:

here is a big jump in an entrepreneur moving his or her business from S-Curve 1 to
S-Curve 2. The move requires awareness, planning and maturity on behalf of the leader
Tand his or her staff and teams.
The organisation cannot grow and thrive in S-Curve 1, as it does not have sufficient structure
and order to maintain the continuous and orderly flow of activities to ensure its end to end
responsibilities.
S-Curve 2 provides the framework through which the organisation is able to designate roles and
responsibilities to competent resources, to meet all business and stakeholder requirements and
expectations.
There is a right time to move from S-Curve 1 to S-Curve 2, as moving too late will pull through
inefficiencies and bad habits, and moving to soon will result in the focus moving off survival and
into a business model not yet required by the organisation.
There is much common sense in maturing business processes to being more sophisticated, and
these should be applied systematically. But, never lose the passion that defined the vision and 21
mission, as all organisations big and small need to maintain that creative desire that provided the
initial energy and purpose.