What makes a business smart?
There are many ways to be a smart business but here’s one angle that’s rarely talked about
Our brand tagline is ‘For smart businesses only’. But what does it mean to be a smart business? The way we see it, being smart in business is not just about using technology, automation, and benefiting from your big data. It’s not about you’re a smart business if you work with us, which is a great idea by the way. We see smart businesses as companies that ask strategic questions that help them better explore their opportunities and challenges. Questions like:
How can we improve our services? How can we retain our clients and grow profit? How can we know which customers to focus on? Or sometimes even asking, ‘What questions should we be asking?’
These are a few examples of the kind of questions we spend our time with companies helping them to understand and solve so they can grow sustainable profit.
Why are such questions important? The fact that you are asking these questions means you are viewing the business strategically. In case you were wondering why we mention questions that seem obvious and common sense, you’ll be surprised how many directors are too busy working in the business and not on the business. Thinking and planning strategically is different than managing the day to day operation. Think of it as two modes: ‘today-sphere’ is the day-to-day, problem-solving, firefighting and time-racing style of thinking and behaving. While ‘Tomorrow-sphere' is the area concerned with leading the business forward, growth, problem-finding, service design and future-shaping. Our experience tells us that 9 out of 10 companies spend 95% of their time in ‘today-sphere’; and that only 1 in 10 companies spends between 10-20% their time in ‘Tomorrow-sphere’.
Not so smart companies think they barely have enough time to manage the pressures of today, and tomorrow is another day. Smart businesses, on the other hand, know that if part of today is not spent thinking and planning for tomorrow, they will always be sailing in rough seas.
So, if you see yourself as a smart business, share with us below some of the questions that occupy part of your time. If you have just realised you are not a smart business yet, reflect on the questions above and below if others shared theirs and see where the thinking process takes you.
Lots of love and smart journeys,
