In my last two posts, I shared the thoughts of Frank Gavrilos of AC Labels on why he has been successful with his business. This post concludes a most interesting and useful insight.

“Face the facts – just do the math!” I read an interesting article recently that suggested many managers manager like ostriches – with their head in the sand. In business, the figures are the “canary in the mine”. Don’t ignore them, Look for trends, good or bad, that will help identify problems and opportunities.

“Work ON the business, not IN it” I regularly hear from my clients that they are too busy “working” to worry about planning. I believe that in small business you need to be spending at least 2 hours a week working ON your business – ie planning for the future, identifying areas for improvement, developing staff etc. Frank made an interesting comment on this that I think defines his principal really well for medium sized businesses “Management need to work on what’s important, staff on what’s urgent”

“Don’t change the goal, change the process!” Now this is an interesting concept. If you have been working on your business and monitoring you figures, it is likely the goals in you plan will remain reasonably consistent. If there are problems reaching these goals (and they are SMART), perhaps the way of reaching them is the problem.

“Don’t reduce headcount, re-engineer their work!” as tempting as it may be to reduce headcount in times of economic downturn, if you have good staff now is the time to try and protect and retain them. Find productive and useful work for them and it will be a win/win situation, especially as business picks up.

“Match skills and tools with your plan” The best plan in the world, be it a football team’s game plan or a business plan needs to be supported by resources. If your plan calls for a strong export push and you lack experience and skills in this area, you need to gear up.

I was really impressed with Frank’s pragmatic approach to business management and hope you find his thoughts useful. While I have taken the liberty to expand on his thoughts a little, the basic concepts remain true and I think are well worth consideration by any business owner or manager.
Cheers
Wayne

In my last post, I shared with you what Frank Gavrilos, MD of AC Labels believed had been some of the reasons for the success of his business. I promised to follow up with his list of what he would look to improve within his business.

Firstly, Frank mentioned the need for tougher organisational assessment. I see the need to this all too often. It can be as basic as management being too busy to focus making sure they have the right person in the right job, to positions being created to support non-performing staff. Functional ogranisational structure will provide the best long term benefits to both the business and staff. If someone is not capable of performing their role in the business, management have a duty to identify this and assist the staff member gain the necessary skills through training or personal development. If this is not possible, the tougher decision of replacing the person may be the required option.

Next, Frank mentioned education at all levels in financial discipline. This ties into the point raised last week with respect to “ruthless cash management”. I recently witnessed where, despite a manager believing he had strong financial practices in place, the lack of attention to financial detail at a supervisor level was having a major impact on profitability of his construction business.

Better leveraging of technology was the next improvement on Frank’s list. When considering this, look for opportunities to improvement production, customer service, supply chain management and any other area of the business where competitive advantage or improved productivity can be achieved through better use of technology.

And lastly, more frequent and improved communication was mentioned. I have found that businesses that deliver clear and appropriate messages on what needs to be done, why it needs to be done and prioritises actions enjoy greater levels of success and staff commitment.

I have discussed Frank’s ideas with a number of business owners over the past week. While a lot of them have applied similar techniques, few had in place such a succinct list that allowed them to share them with their management team.

Until next week
Wayne