Another topic most important for business management is "Security". This does not mean, that only security of your customers and employees is kept under this heading, it also includes security of everything in and about your business. It includes to keep copies of important documents in several places other than your office, keeping your computer network save and to provide a secure working environment for your employees or yourself. You know best what is important for your company, so just take a sheet of paper or your favourite spreadsheet program and make a list of everything important to run your business.

After you finished this list, think about what has to be done on each topic to have a secure solution. That's not that difficult to do, if you have a computer network you have to take care that access is made available only to right people, this includes installation of firewalls, virus scanner and so on. Document copies for example could be stored in a safe place at home or preferably in a safe-deposit box at your bank.

Until now, all this has covered internal management of your business. You have not made any sales from all of this. So, most important is last part of business management. It's all about getting customer and customer loyalty. It seems getting a new customer needs tremendous affords these days, but sometimes you hear from businesses where new customers just come in as if there where no other solutions. Well, that is not usual anyway. To get new customers today, you need good products and services and you must be able to communicate what are benefits of them. This has to be done while advertising online and offline. As soon as you have customers you need to keep them staying with your business. This should be not a problem, due to today's techniques.

You may send regular news on products and services and most important you provide quality customer support. Otherwise customers will leave as fast as they have arrived. Getting customers is hardest task in business management. You could read a lot about it, but not getting any customer. The best way is to try what works for your business and then improving procedures. Keep one thing in mind, nothing happens all of a sudden, so take your time and try again and again.

To summarize above, there are 4 basic ingredients needed to manage a business,

- Getting and keeping Customers (requires good products and services) - a Controlling System which gives you a rough picture about business development every week - an organisational Structure and Workflow that suites your needs - and a secure working environment. ------------------ ARTICLE END ------------------

At this example you could recognize little expressiveness of only one business ratio. It shows importance to use right business ratios, which must have a connection to each other and which have a different temporal origin. Nevertheless, many business ratio systems are mostly based on data which originate from past.

This turns often to problem, that immediate information are not available, to indicate actual situation of a business. However, there is still alternative, to reduce period of past. How would it be with one week instead of analysing business data every 4 weeks? This would lead to fact that you could act a few weeks earlier, if something should run a little bit inclinedly.

Only very few data are needed to receive an informative evaluation. This again is comparably with a car. If you are driving with your car, you only receive a small, well-chosen number of information and nevertheless, have an actual picture of situation. This is also possible for businesses, as well!

As a motorist we receive only one fraction of data which is acquired by system of car, and just these fraction of information is enough for us to reach desired destination. When traveling usually we are well prepared, but principle of preparations is often neglected in business operation. As it is with traveling, final goal has to be clearly stated by business management. This could be done by having planing data available. Only by target/actual comparison divergences of commercial development will be recognized.

Unfortunately, many small businesses renounce to use plan data. Besides, it is not about, to cut plan data into smallest pieces, but only to get a rough picture, what business is going to achieve. It is absolutely possible to run a business on basis of figures from previous year, however, to use these figures, past commercial development should be taken into consideration. So figures from previous year should be improved to fit with new goals. And finished are planning data and basis for an operational risk management are laid. Still if it is most important to know actual bottlenecks in business operation.

Recognize problems and act!

One of most important factors in business management is early recognition of problems and potentials. There are bottlenecks in every business, which could have serious results. Pecuniary difficulties could lead to bankruptcy for example. Therefore symptoms must be recognized early, in order to turn a possible crisis away and to secure future of your business. Also to use available potentials, regular analyses should be done. Nowadays products and services could not be sold forever, because product cycles become shorter and shorter due to market dynamism. The recognition and development of potentials is exceptionally important, to avoid losing already achieved basis of a business.

To asure an easy and effective business management of your company, you will find reports, checklists and on-line analysis ( Screenshot Strategic Balance Analysis) at our Internetpages to help you to be always informed about actual situation of your business. Bottleneck-oriented Business Management is suitable for every business. ------------------ ARTICLE END ------------------