Starting,Business,With,High,Pe business, insurance Starting a Business With High Performance Assessment

As we all know to live in this world we have to perform some activity by which we can earn money. There are many activities by which we can earn money and meet the standards to live in this society. And from one of them is franchise.  Franc Small offices have unique needs, and thatincludes document shredding. Designed with the smaller business inmind, the Dahle 20314 is a cross-cut shredder that offers Level 3security and brings you into compliance with federal regulations. The

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}    Starting a new business has a tremendous upside but there is an equal,if not higher, risk of failure and loss. As noted many times in our material,statistics show that 80% of new businesses fail within the first 5 years. Dueto this statistic, we stress a well designed and thought out business plancoupled with an enormous amount of research and planning and use of that datain the implementation of the start-up business.    Lately, life has been little better for existing businesses which arefailing at an alarming rate. Of course this is due to the unique economic andbanking conditions that currently exist. Most business owners have notexperienced similar economic issues and could not recognize the signals priorto the damage. They kept operating as they always did, never stopped to evaluatethe environment around them nor did they take timely action when the obviouswas upon them.    When businesses come to us for consultation they expect an immediateanswer to their problems. Yet they typically do not have an analysis of thesituation for us to review, they just give us the symptom and request asolution. This is immediate proof that there is not internal companyanalysis or evaluations being performed on a regular basis, if at all. Once wesuggest that an analysis must be done prior to being able to help them with theirproblem the expense of that is objected to. Our response is always two fold;We request the time and support to prepare an assessment from which we then attempt to carve out a solution. When one is sick and they call the doctor, do they receive a prescription or treatment option over the phone, of course not. There first must be an examination after which the prescription or treatment is prescribed. There must always be an assessment of where one is and what the options are. Too many businesses never perform this and if they did they probably would not need us to diagnose the problem.We then explain that every business is perfectly designed to produce the results that are being attained. In other words, bad production, poor quality, inadequate response time, etc are all a direct result of the systems in place or lack thereof. When things go wrong, one must first look internally rather than blaming the economy or the competition, there is usually a solution within the organization.    When starting a new business these same concepts must be adhered to inthe design of the business plan. In other words, you must design systems intoyour organization in order to make it run efficiently and then you mustcontinually evaluate the systems. Even a "one person" operation needsorganization and a system; otherwise things are not done in a manner to assureconsistent results.    We point this out to discuss the topic of self analysis. Many of theproblems in large and small businesses exist in the organizational elements ofthe company and are not looked into because these systems were typically putinto place by the owner and the owner can never be wrong. Alternatively, manytimes the owner may be willing to change but time is never taken to sit downand perform a routine assessment. Egos and failure to self evaluate are commonreasons of small business failure. Pride and passion are assets that thebusiness owner must have but they cannot be placed ahead of good businesspractices. A great example is the business plan. This is usually written by theowner and is designed to promote the company and obtain investors or bankfinancing. With that as the rationale for its drafting, many times the data isskewed in a more positive light than reality and/or detailed research is notdone for whatever reason and glaring holes exist in the plan itself. Thus manysmall businesses are started and are doomed to failure before the first widgetis produced. Therefore, one must be diligent to be realistic when doing thebusiness plan and then assess the good and the bad. View the project inrealistic terms, not in terms of hopes or goals. If the plan shows poor cashflow or multiple year losses, redesign it or terminate the project.    Another example is the failure of companies to hold annual orsemi-annual strategy or assessment meetings to examine not only the externalforces affecting the business but the internal personnel and systems. If youwere lost in the woods would you simply keep walking in hopes that you mightsooner or later find your way out? Well we hope not. It would be wise to stop,look for landmarks, your surroundings, the weather, your food and water supply,and your physical situation and then design a plan that fits the results of theassessment of your situation. This gives you the best hope of getting homesafely, as compared to the random and unplanned attempt to just keep walkingand hope for a good outcome.    To properly assess your company to find its weaknesses we suggest thatthe company's senior management ask themselves these questions.*How clear is the direction of the company?How well do you understand the critical opportunities and steps needed to take the company to the next level?How well do people understand the strengths and weaknesses of the organization? Why?How effective are changes in only one part of the organization without understanding or considering changes to the whole?    These questions and the thought process that they will hopefullystimulate are the initial steps of "Assessing Your Organization for HighPerformance"*. These same questions must also be considered when designingthe business plan of a new company. The systems will interact and therefore thedifferent systems must be designed properly.    To understand the concept of business systems we will need somedefinitions. A system is defined as an arrangement of interrelated parts. Attributes of business systems are*:Each element of a system has an effect on the wholeThe various parts of the system are interdependentThe sum of the parts is greater than the wholeAn organization is a living system, dependent upon its external environment for survivalAs a living system, an organization is "open" to influences and transactions with its environment   Into this system go energy, raw materials and/or information. The systemprocesses this input and then produces products or services. The recipient ofthose products or services as well as the participants in the system thenshould give feedback to keep the system healthy and alive*. As importantly, themanagers of that system must constantly monitor the external environment anduse that information to also help upgrade and improve the system.    Our next blog posting will take these concepts and put them into ananalytical tool to help you understand how you can use these concepts analyzeyour organization. We will look and explain the Transformation Model* and howusing that model can help you critique and assess your organization.*Theseconcepts and principles were formulated by and set out in the "Assessingyour Organization for High Performance" , The Center for OrganizationalDesign, Inc/360 Solutions LLC, Waco, TX.