Inciteful

See part 1 of my blog post in Dynamic Export -its all about how understanding the value your customers helps you define and refine your strategy. 

http://www.dynamicexport.com.au/blogs/part-1-find-out-what-value-customers-place-on-your-brand/

Look out for part 2

With an ever changing world, just think since January 2011 we have had, floods, cyclones, earthquakes and of course broken promises from governments (local, state and federal), all of which provides us a catalyst to reflect on how we have built our businesses.

At Incite our foundations are built of four solid platforms:

• PEOPLE

• PLANNING

• PERFORMANCE

• PROFIT

These four platforms are central to all businesses across all industries. As Business Owners we need to be regularly reviewing our capabilities and resources at our disposal and ensure that we have aligned our development strategies for growth.

So if you are looking to:

• Grow your sales;

• Improve your bottom line;

• Implement marketing strategies that work;

• Get funding to grow your business;

• Outperform your competition;

• Take the business global; or 

• Develop a profitable exit strategy.

The look to see if your business is built on a solid platform based on

• PEOPLE – the right personnel with the appropriate skills and experience;

• PLANNING – an aligned business action plan that covers all aspects of the business and budget to support the execution of its strategies;

• PERFORMANCE – a series of control measures to ensure that the employed resources are being utilised to achieve the optimal return; and

• PROFIT – financial and non-financial goals and targets that truly reflect the real market conditions as opposed to the “nirvana” result.

As Bob Dylan once wrote “Times they are a changin” and yes they are.

At yesterdays quarterly Incite and Futuretrendsgroup  "Boost Innovation In Your Business" syndicate meeting Craig Rispin facilitated a stimulating discussion on how to build process into developing innovation in your business.
In making the process easy to start his message is don't concentrate on the areas where you know you're organisation is very strong as most likely you'll already have good innovation processes in those areas -but perhaps think of areas where you know you're organisation needs to do better.

To start the process think of the following areas:
Customer Engagement Experience: Is this all it could be in your organisation?
Product / Service development 
Technological Innovation 
Process Improvement
and perhaps we all agreed now the most important is Business Model Improvement.

Are you sure you now have the right business model for todays changing markets to achieve the results you want? Look at how many 'disruptive' new ideas have taken off in the last 5-10 years that have changed markets permanently -the iPhone /iPad- online shopping -virtual meetings to name a few.  Innovation can apply to all areas of your business for example take a look at the Kogan 'Live Pricing' innovation see here 
http://www.kogan.com.au/blog/2010/dec/2/kogan-liveprice-revolution-retail-transparency/    
 
In the realm of new ideas Craig argues quantity over quality counts so choose some of the Innovation topics from above that are important to your business  and make a plan to develop one new idea a month for the next 12 months.... would that boost the innovation in your business?

If you're interested in this program and would benefit from a 2 hour Incite and Futuretrendsgroup review of the process of innovation in your business see here for more information  http://www.incitemg.com.au/AnnouncementRetrieve.aspx?ID=35446
  

Have you increased the value of your business in 2010? As business owners we frequently get caught up in the "doing" of business. Of course profitability and cash flow are always front of mind for all business owners -but it is important to regularly step back and look at our business and say hey -we might have improved my short term profit or improved cash flow but what has our team done to build long term value over the last 3, 6, 9 or 12 mths?

Incite recently performed this exercise internally and we found ourselves, like most business owners saying "wow we've been busy -but have we really added value to the business in the last 12 mths ?" When we were honest and said -"well possibly not" -then we resolved to do something about it. One tangible result of our internal review is the fact you are reading this blog - a new feature for Incite (keep an eye out for regular 'Inciteful' updates).

Another new feature is our new Workshop Series starting January with our "Creating Value In Your Business" workshop designed to stimulate your own thinking about your goals for your business and assisting you to identify what are the true value drivers in your business -so that you and your team can be sure you do more of them and less of what doesn't.... We'll shortly follow that up with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Export and Succession Planning workshops.

So watch this space and sign up to the RSS feed.

If you're interested in our January Value Creation workshop just click on our homepage here www.incitemg.com.au and follow the prompts for more information.                  

Alternatively post a comment and lets start a dialogue!   

Thanks