Hey guys, in this article, we will discuss how to pinpoint your business weaknesses and strengths? And how to use it to your advantage. So keep reading.
A large part of ensuring success in your small business is knowing what you do well, and what you need to outsource. Over two-thirds of US consumer product companies currently use outsourcing.
According to estimates by IBIS World, The Business Process Outsourcing Services industry is expected to grow another 0.4 percent in 2021.
Being unbiased and recognizing your strengths in your business can help your business maximize your investment, grow your business online or offline, and optimize your productivity.
In the long run, knowing your strengths can help you play to them and boost your business’s chances of survival.
How To Pinpoint Your Business Weaknesses And Strengths:
Table of Contents:
1. Figure Out Your Core Competencies
2. Do A Business Process Audit
3. Use Feedback From Your Customers
Figure Out Your Core Competencies
A business’s core competencies are the foundation for establishing its competitive advantages in the market. It is what sets your business apart.
In other words, it is your business’ strength. According to the SHRM, by identifying your core competencies a business can get ahead of sustaining its long-term competitive advantage.
The Society of Human Resource Management also recommends that you should begin by outlining any underlying skills, expertise, or business processes that allow your business to provide its service/goods.
Indeed also suggests revisiting your business’ mission statement and considering why your business is important to customers.
Do A Business Process Audit
Doing an internal audit of your business provides valuable information for outsourcing. A good strategy for deciphering what your business does well, and what processes should be outsourced is to measure each business process against a preset checklist of questions.
Is the process repetitive? Would outsourcing it save you money and time on labor or facilities? Is the business process a core competency or a supplementary process?
According to Rahul Varshneya of Curve Break, if the answer to these questions is yes, you may have a case for contracting out to third parties who can provide the economies of scale your business needs.
Use Feedback From Your Customers
The point about identifying your core competencies in your business leads on to another point: utilizing feedback from your customers.
Customer feedback can be incredibly valuable in answering the question of why your business is important to customers. Using pulse surveys and past customer reviews, you can gauge what your business is doing well and what areas it needs to improve.
For instance, customers may want extended customer service hours or more innovative marketing campaigns.
This raises the question of either extending your in-house customer service function (and incurring additional labor costs) or outsourcing your customer service function to a specialist firm.
Remember that the aim of identifying that your business does well (and not so well) is to keep your business continuously moving forward.
For businesses to succeed in today’s competitive landscape, they must be agile and willing to always improve. It is also okay to find that your business has things it does not excel at.
Tools like outsourcing are there to help you improve them. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses gets you started on the right foot.
So that’s all from this blog. I hope you liked this article on how to pinpoint your business weaknesses and strengths? And how to use it to your advantage. Thanks for reading.