Communication – the key to unlocking growth and success

November 4, 2019 By Mike Pill

At the heart of every business one factor continuously calls for our attention – improving communication with a view to unlocking business growth and success.

Over the years many a consultant has advised and implemented varying communication scenarios for their clients; the Total Quality Management (TQM) business management approach enjoyed widespread attention during the late 1980s and early 1990s before being overshadowed by the standards specification of ISO 9000 and the improvement methodologies of Lean manufacturing, and Six Sigma. The common thread of all these procedures is communication.

How do these approaches differ?

TMQ consists of organization-wide efforts to install and make a permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on demand products and services that customers will find of particular value.

The ISO 9000 family of quality management systems standards is designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service.

Lean manufacturing or lean production is a systematic method originating in the Japanese manufacturing industry for the minimization of waste within a manufacturing system without sacrificing productivity, which can cause problems. Similar principles can be applied to services.

Six Sigma is a method that provides organizations tools to improve the capability of their business processes. This increase in performance and decrease in process variation helps lead to defect reduction and improvement in profits, employee morale, and quality of products or services.

Whatever procedure you use, a focus on better communicating your business methodologies will always secure dividends.

Top tips for improving communication

Good communication is essential across ALL employee, contractor and partner interactions. Don’t’ just assume it’s all about your internal people.
You may wish to consider who has most client contact in your organisation. Perhaps you first response may be sales or customer service, but you may be surprised to learn that it is your accounts receivable clerk in the accounts department who regularly calls your clients to chase payment and sustain the all-important cash flow. It is very important that they understand the service level agreement with clients (SLAs) and feedback immediately if a payment is delayed due to client perception of a shortcoming.
Acronyms and jargon are all very fine, giving perpetrators a feeling of grandeur, but common sense will always prevail via clear and simple communication.
Make sure that all your employees are kept up to date with key business objectives and progress. Strategy may start in executive suite, but it cannot be delivered effectively if not clearly communicated to all concerned.

Honing your internal business communications is one of the areas we cover in our TwentyTwenty Insight business review process, where we provide a snapshot of the health of your business with suggestions on what you might do next to grow your business.

If this is of interest, why not speak to Mike Pill on 01276 684 007 or email him at mike.pill@hcbusinessadvisors.co.uk

About the Author

Mike Pill is an Executive Search and Selection specialist with in depth experience placing worldclass executives, managers and staff into Engineering, Finance, Sales & Marketing and Technology roles.

Communication – the key to unlocking growth and success

November 4, 2019 By Mike Pill

At the heart of every business one factor continuously calls for our attention – improving communication with a view to unlocking business growth and success.

How do these approaches differ?

Whatever procedure you use, a focus on better communicating your business methodologies will always secure dividends.

Top tips for improving communication

Good communication is essential across ALL employee, contractor and partner interactions. Don’t’ just assume it’s all about your internal people.
You may wish to consider who has most client contact in your organisation. Perhaps you first response may be sales or customer service, but you may be surprised to learn that it is your accounts receivable clerk in the accounts department who regularly calls your clients to chase payment and sustain the all-important cash flow. It is very important that they understand the service level agreement with clients (SLAs) and feedback immediately if a payment is delayed due to client perception of a shortcoming.
Acronyms and jargon are all very fine, giving perpetrators a feeling of grandeur, but common sense will always prevail via clear and simple communication.
Make sure that all your employees are kept up to date with key business objectives and progress. Strategy may start in executive suite, but it cannot be delivered effectively if not clearly communicated to all concerned.

If this is of interest, why not speak to Mike Pill on 01276 684 007 or email him at mike.pill@hcbusinessadvisors.co.uk

About the Author

Mike Pill is an Executive Search and Selection specialist with in depth experience placing worldclass executives, managers and staff into Engineering, Finance, Sales & Marketing and Technology roles.

Financial information you need to run your business effectively

October 7, 2019 By Richard Wickes

In order to manage your business effectively you need to be sure that it has enough cash to keep trading and that it is running profitably. To ensure this happens, I recommend you review your financial status at the start of each and every business week.

You will have financial records, probably in one of the most popular accounting software packages such as Sage, QuickBooks or Xero. Either your own staff or your accountants will use these to prepare VAT returns and the other legal requirements such as the annual accounts required by Companies House. These accounting systems can also produce many of the essential figures you need to review on a weekly basis.

Additionally, you need to forecast which clients are likely to pay their invoices this week. This is often not the same as those who should pay this week. Accurately forecasting your weekly cashflow is a skill every business needs to master.

Not all of the figures in the list below will apply to all businesses. You need to establish which are relevant to you. For example if your business works by fulfilling orders within 24 hours you will not need a figure for unbilled orders. However if there is a lengthy period between you receiving an order, fulfilling it and then invoicing the client, then you also need to track that information.

Monday Morning Figures

Here are the figures I recommend you track on a weekly basis as part of your Monday review.

Cash Position

Cash at bank
Cash available taking into account overdraft limits and other immediate sources of cash
Likely cash receipts this week. This will not be an exact figure, but your best estimate
Total of payments you expect to make this week

You need these figures to make sure that you have the financial resources to see you through the week.

Trading Position

Invoices issued last week, month to date and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date
Cost of goods sold last week, month to date and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date
Gross profit last week, month to date and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date
Orders received last week, month to date and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date
Value of unbilled orders or work in progress this week, month to date and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date

Use these figures to check that you are trading profitably

Month-end Figures

In addition to the above on the first Monday after the month end you should expect to see:

Total debtors
Total creditors
Total value of stock and work in progress

Total overhead costs (all costs apart from cost of goods sold) this month and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date
Net profit this month and year-to-date, together with last year’s year-to-date value and this year’s budget year-to-date

You need to monitor these figures regularly to make sure you are trading profitably. Ultimately, you do not want to learn from your annual accounts that you were trading at a loss all of the previous year.

Financial management is one of the areas we cover in our TwentyTwenty Insight business review process, where we provide a snapshot of the health of your business with suggestions on what you might do next to grow your business.

If this is of interest, why not speak to Richard Wickes on 020 7371 7001 or email him at Richard.wickes@lgbusinessadvisors.co.uk

How to continuously sharpen your company’s competitive edge

October 7, 2019 By Lesley Anne Rubenstein-Pessok

The use of the word ‘continuously’ is purposefully placed in the title of this blog article. Why? Because I fully believe that if a company does not continuously sharpen its competitive edge, it won’t be long before they do not have one in today’s ever-increasing pace.

I’m sure we can all think of examples of companies who have been market leaders and no longer exist or have had to sell assets and/or shrink in size to survive. Eastman Kodak is a prime example. Kodak began to struggle financially in the 1990s when digital camera technology hit the retail market. Only recently they have emerged from bankruptcy, after selling many of its patents to current giants including Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft.

Woolworths is another case in point. It used to be one of my favourite stores for spending my pocket-money. A few pence went a long way in Woolworths – a child’s paradise. Several months before they closed their retail outlets in the UK, I recall walking in and out of Woolworths, without having made a purchase. It was very clear that they were in trouble. Wilkingson’s and others had replaced them. I wondered then how they were going to stay in business; I’ve had the same thoughts over other retail brands who shall remain nameless.

I do find it interesting to see who’s winning and who’s losing market share in the retail industry which, of all industries, is quite brutal. Within that industry, I’m going to include hospitality. Even celebrity brands have suffered, namely Jamie Oliver. So what does it take to stay on top of your game? Here are my thoughts:

1) Moving forward

Never rest on the laurels of your current success. If you stay in the same place and keep doing the same things, along the lines of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, it could and most likely would cause the company to suffer greatly in the future. If you don’t, you could end up playing ‘catch-up’ like Sage once Xero arrived, or worse, you could be out of business.

2) Embrace change

It’s tough when you want to instigate change in your company and inevitably, someone will pipe up ‘but we’ve always done it this way’. Many people, including people in your team or elsewhere in the company, do not like change. Indeed, they are threatened by it. Unions thrive off people who might lose their job because of it. Look at all the social media pressure not to use self-checkout systems as it will cause a loss of jobs in supermarkets. Recognise that change requires enrolling people into the change, explaining the benefits, and reducing their fears by conducting open and safe discussions.

3) Train your sales team and/or account managers

Train your sales team. Create an incentivisation plan for building long term relationships beyond the initial sale process. Market intel is crucial for understanding new trends in the marketplace and your client’s are best placed to know what is going on. Ask them what they are happy with, what features they use, what they don’t use, what they would like to have instead, etc.

4) Market research

Market research comprises visiting trade shows, reading trade magazines, scanning social media platforms, subscribing to newsletters to discover new technology and to track your competition. Set up alerts in Google…

Never forget that disrupters could be working under the radar. If you are a technology led company, implementing patent and literature searches are imperative.

5) Investments in the sector

Linked to item 4) above, keep an eye on what angel investors are investing in, via angel forums, crowdfunding newsletters/platforms and networking events where companies pitch for investment. That’s at the seed level. But what about at the corporate level – who’s acquiring what and why? Where is the sector going?

6) Thought Leaders

Who are the thought leaders in the sector? Who is giving talks at conferences? What are they writing about? Do you subscribe to their blogs? Are you following them on twitter? Linkedin?

7) Focus on your clients

Xero’s strategy was to focus their innovation on the user-experience. Any company that focuses on their end-user market, listening and taking on board their likes and dislikes, has a good chance of carving their niche, even in a so-called ‘sewn-up’ market. Xero’s downfall will be if they lose sight of where the market is going, and/or stop listening, and become complacent.

8) Reinvention

Who would have thought several years ago that accountants’ roles would be under threat? With accounting software becoming more user-friendly, and smart, integrating machine-learning, artificial intelligence programmes, as well as the UK’s HMRC making tax digital, accountants won’t be as useful as they may have been. They will have to add a lot more value to their clients in order to hold and potentially grow their market-share, and sooner, rather than later.

9) Automation

Automation, AI, chatbots, etc. might be perceived as a threat (rather like the industrial revolution) or, could be perceived as an opportunity. Take ‘Tier 1’ service levels, for example: –

If you’re a bit of a technology geek which I believe I am, Tier 1 frustrates me no end. The level is typically that of following directions in a flowsheet. ‘Have you tried switching it off and on?’, ‘Did you try to reset your device?’, etc., etc. If the client answers ‘yes’ or ‘no’ the service provider moves on to the next question. Boring!

Do we really need humans to deliver tier 1 service? The answer is ‘no’ – it could be completely scripted. Even I could create a chatbot to do this and I wouldn’t even need to know any coding to do so. Automated chatbot technology has been available for years – but how many of us have experienced humans delivering tier 1 service over the phone or other platforms recently? I’m sure that too many of us.

But what if companies woke up to using the new technology that is readily available to them to save not only costs, but user-frustration. Tier 1 providers could be retrained to do other, more upskilled work. It would be better for their personal development, job satisfaction, and for the added-value that could be delivered to end-user clients.

In short

I’m sure this article has left out other important points that I haven’t thought of – do feel free to add your comments to this article. I trust it has given you some ‘food for thought’ or inspired you to investigate how you can become more competitive, and how to stay competitive.

Honing your competitive edge is one of the areas we cover in our TwentyTwenty Insight business review process, where we provide a snapshot of the health of your business with suggestions on what you might do next to grow your business.

If this is of interest to your business, why not speak to Lesley Anne Rubenstein-Pessok on 020 8868 3163 or email her at Lesley.rubenstein@lgbusinessadvisors.co.uk

About the Author

Lesley is a highly experienced international business developer, executive coach, mentor, advisor, consultant and business transformation specialist with over 30 years’ experience working with a whole cross section of corporates, SMEs, scale-ups to start-ups.

Excel automation

March 23, 2017 By Bob Lewis-Basson

Not more spreadsheets to analyse and chart…

Always a regular cry in the office. Reports produced on a regular basis need to be embellished, with charts that involve some fairly complicated calculations – cross-reference look-ups, previous month comparisons, and all that sort of thing.

Probably, now this is done largely by hand. The data sits in several spreadsheets and/or databases, and is extracted, filtered, pivoted and everything else that was necessary to get it ready, before feeding into a chart. When the chart was ready, it is pasted into the report.

Wouldn’t it be great with the data is all in one place, and with a single front-end, the necessary criteria set from drop-downs. Once these selections have been made (locations, benchmarks, which dataset to use, and so on) you click a button and go and make coffee. Actually, you haven’t really got time to make coffee as the process takes just a couple of minutes – if that.

In this instance, any number of queries can be run; sometimes one query, sometimes several to generate the data. Each one automatically loading a into an Excel workbook, in to the right columns, in the right order to aid presentation. Then, your screen explodes into a fresh multi-coloured set of charts based on the information just collated! And is that the pivot table I slave over every month appearing before my very eyes!

In the past that has meant spending anything between a couple of hours to a couple of days for more complex reporting every period. Multiply that by twelve, and it becomes a not insignificant amount of time in a year m to get these twelve reports, graphs and charts prepared.

Say it was half a day of someone’s time, at the average salary of £26,000 – that’s a cost of around £60+ to the business for each report, or chart. Each and every time.

If reporting is weekly, that’s going to be more than £3,000 every year – more likely a lot more than that. If it now takes 30 minutes to do the whole job, that’s a total of just over 4 days for the whole year’s worth (at one report a week). The four days will cost under £500. So you get to keep £2,500 to do something else with.

What would you like to do with it?

Excel automation by Bob Lewis-Basson – 0780 244 1728

Data Protection

March 22, 2017 By Bob Lewis-Basson

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) you must:

use personal information fairly and lawfully;
collect only the information necessary for a specific purpose(s);
ensure it is relevant, accurate and up to date;
only hold as much as you need, and only for as long as you need it;
allow the subject of the information to see it on request; and
keep it secure.

Good information handling makes good business sense, and it provides a range of benefits. You’ll enhance your business’ reputation, increase customer and employee confidence, and by ensuring that personal information is accurate, relevant and safe, save both time and money.

Your business has established an appropriate Data Protection Policy?

A policy will help you to address data protection in a consistent manner. This can be a standalone policy statement or part of a general staff policy. The policy should clearly set out your business’s approach to data protection together with responsibilities for implementing the policy and monitoring compliance. The policy should be approved by management, published and communicated to all staff. The policy should also be reviewed and updated at planned intervals or when required to ensure it remains relevant.

Your business has nominated a data protection lead?

It is good practice to identify a person or department in your business with day-to-day responsibility for developing, implementing and monitoring the data protection policy. Allocating these responsibilities to a data protection lead will help you effectively manage and co-ordinate data protection, and make your business more accountable. The lead should be appropriately skilled and have the necessary authority and resources to fulfil their duties.

Your business provides data protection awareness training for all staff?

Any data security breaches are accidental and result from insider actions. You should brief all staff handling personal data on their data protection responsibilities. It is good practice to provide awareness training on or shortly after appointment with updates at regular intervals or when required. Specialist training for staff with specific duties, such as marketing, information security and database management, should also be considered. The regular communication of key messages is equally important to help reinforce training and maintain awareness (for example, intranet articles, circulars, team briefings and posters).

If you are not sure where you stand in respect to DPA (Data Protection Act) or the forthcoming GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) call me now …

Bob Lewis-Basson 07802441728, or email bob.lewis-basson@tvba.co.uk

Power up your business with a Virtual Non-Executive Director

March 6, 2017 By Gordon Carmichael

The benefits of Non-Executive Directors are well understood by many successful business owners. They bring an independent view and additional experience that enable better decisions to be made by the management board. Our Home Counties and London Group Business Advisors have developed a Virtual Non-Executive Director (VNED) service that offers Managing Directors and business owners the same independent view and advice without the complexity of shareholdings, appointing legal directors and director’s service agreements.

Every company is different and yet there are many similar and transferable aspects from other industries and markets. Our experts are able to utilise their broad business experience and extensive network of contacts to support companies to achieve their strategic objectives. An independent view that challenges existing or new strategies can substantially enhance the robustness of a company’s direction. Sometimes difficult decisions are required to deal with business problems and the VNED can act as a sounding board to provide guidance and help the decision making process.

Our approach recognises that established and start up businesses have different needs at different times in their life cycle. New businesses often have a need to demonstrate credibility externally to customers and investors. Appointing a Virtual Non-Executive Director can enhance this.

How does it work?

The optimal Virtual Non-Executive Director approach varies with the needs of a business, the existing in-house skills and the “personality” of its MD and management team. Our experts are adept at engaging with companies to strike a balanced approach between coaching, practical advice, strategic input and holding the management to account where appropriate. Prior to engagement, we offer a confidential, no obligation, no holds barred discussion to establish what is actually needed and to establish priorities. A flexible approach is adopted to accommodate the practical time constraints of running a business, the need to react to short term opportunities or threats, planning for growth, the changing needs of the business and potentially planning for exit.

Businesses need to get things done but don’t always have access to the in house skills or expertise required for projects or specialist activity. If appropriate, our business experts can introduce trusted resources from their network that can jump start new requirements.

What does it cost?

The VNED service is charged on a monthly retainer basis with no long-term commitment and no surprises. The service is designed to deliver on-going value to the MD and the company. The monthly cost depends on the level of engagement agreed and will be tailored to your needs.

Contact Gordon Carmichael on 01276 818125 or gordon.carmichael@hcbusinessadvisors.co.uk to discuss how our Virtual Non-Executive Director service can benefit your business.

Are you worried about Pension Auto-Enrolment?

February 4, 2017 By Mushroom Internet

The law on workplace pensions has changed. Every employer with at least one member of staff has new duties – enrolling those who are eligible into a workplace pension and to contribute towards it. This is called Auto Enrolment.

Auto Enrolment has been introduced by the government so people save for a pension that will eventually top up the state pension.

In the past many employees missed out on a valuable pension because their employer didn’t offer them a pension, or they didn’t apply to join the company pension scheme. Auto Enrolment changes this. It makes it compulsory for employers to automatically enrol their eligible employees into a pension scheme. The employer must also contribute. This also means that employees will be offered a benefit that will hopefully translate to increased employee commitment/motivation and lower staff turnover.

Hefty fines apply to those who fail to comply with auto enrolment. Employers with more than 50 employees should already be up and running and for those businesses with less than 50 the staging dates are as follows:

40-49 employees 01/08/2015
30-39 employees 01/10/2015
Less than 30 employees 01/04/2017

If you are concerned about Pension Auto Enrolment and the implications it has for your business, Advisors at SGBA can help you so, talk to your local business advisor on 0774 044 9090 or call 0333 444 8522 (local call number) to be connected to a specialist. Or email me, peter.smale@sgba.co.uk. Act NOW before your staging date.

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How do these approaches differ?

Top tips for improving communication

About the Author

How do these approaches differ?

Top tips for improving communication

About the Author

How does it work?

What does it cost?