Member Article

Future proofing: a business (Brexit) MOT

With the future of the UK’s trade relationships being debated internally at the G20 as well as at home, there is no doubt that the UK faces an uncertain future, post-Brexit. What can the nation’s SMEs do to ensure they are fit for the road ahead?

Where there is uncertainty, there is naturally fear of what the future holds. Businesses need to feel in control again, be able to make informed decisions and get a plan in place.

Author of revolutionary business book, Art of Enterprise, and respected business mentor, Phil Underwood advises, “Most businesses know a lot more than they think they do, they just need help to capture this hard earned knowledge so it can be used to prepare for the future. Yet because these insights are hidden inside people’s heads, they are often ignored, lost or just thrown away.”

He has outlined a simple SME MOT to carry out on your business, to identify where things could be improved to ensure it is ‘roadworthy’. Every business is made up of three key parts of business knowledge: a market, its operations and its team (MOT). Success requires these parts to work well and fit together, here is a way to check how you are doing:

SMEs are renowned for having close relationships with clients, this is a real competitive advantage. Nurture these customer relationships, grow them where you can, ensure you understand their current and future needs. Gather market intelligence from these relationships to understand your strengths, industry trends, competition and opportunities. Checking where you sit in the market and where you can grow.

The European single market may not be around for long; what other global markets offer opportunities, is there untapped potential in other English speaking nations, or high-growth nations such as India and China? The challenge will be to spot opportunities and understand needs.

These are the type of questions you might want to ask yourself:

What do your current customers need? What are their specific problems? Understand their life and their ‘pain’ - can you help ease it? How well do you know your competitors? Understand what your competitors are best at and why you are different.

As markets shift, it may mean a demand for different products and services. How you currently do things may need to be changed as a result.

It’s a good idea, before you change anything, to understand how you currently deliver your product or service. Put your processes down on paper so everyone can see what’s happening; help spread best practices; and be involved in identifying what could be improved. Develop and implement an improvement plan (which focuses on ‘what, who and when’) and regularly revisit it.

As you jot everything down on paper, ask yourself:

Are you approaching your processes logically? Are there tasks you’re duplicating or that don’t add value? What works and what doesn’t? Identify issues to address, embrace new ideas from your team, and hunt out best practice from elsewhere.

With reports indicating that one in five feel that their job is less secure after Brexit, reassuring staff and acknowledging their value will be important. Fostering talent will be key as the talent pool may shrink with changes to immigration.

Your own team is a vital part of this process, they can help you maximise your potential and so it’s always good to get them involved. After all it is their future as well, they are normally closer to some of the issues and will often have thought of business solutions.

Draw an organisational chart to help you understand the team now and possible developments required. Identify the talents of your people and consider how you could use their individual strengths to build a better team. Use people that are good at doing certain things to train others and develop colleagues.

Questions to ask yourself at this stage:

Are there any job or skills gaps? How can these be filled and could anyone in the company take on more? How can you use your best team members to better advantage? How can they help develop the rest of the workforce for the benefit of the whole company?

The MOT brings together all your business knowledge so that you can develop future options in a quick business plan. Putting your business through an MOT is a valuable exercise in futureproofing it, and something that you can return to time and again.

Phil adds, “Once the thoughts are out of your head, you can start gathering the thoughts of those around you – both your internal team and external stakeholders like suppliers and customers. The power of SMEs is how close you are to your people, so harness this in your planning. It’s their future too.

“At the end of this process, you will have a ‘living business plan’. Put it on the wall, make it part of life and turn it into a tool that can help you work through whatever the wider world throws at you.”

Find out more about Art of Enterprise here: www.artofltd.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Phil Underwood .