12 Management Competencies – Analysing the Business

This is the first in a series of posts detailing The 12 Competencies of a Manager.

1. Analysing the business

Definition: Quickly establishes the key facts in determining the causes and implications within the business and the marketplace, in order to be a more profitable business.

So how can you ‘quickly’ identify the key facts? Surely analysis takes time.

True, but the aim here is to ‘train hard and fight easy’ to mis-quote Muhammed Ali. To be able to quickly establish anything, you need the gain extensive knowledge to be confident in your decision making process. For me this was making sure that I had a plan, I was on top of all the figures/stats and knew my market inside out.

1. Plan to review and research your market place at least 1 hour each month. This is dedicated time to read articles and editorials, gain knowledge on the top 5 players, find out who are the movers and shakers, what the trends are, details on your competitors, peaks and troughs in business throughout the year, terminology and jargon etc.

2. Review your own business on a weekly, then monthly, then quarterly, then yearly and finally year on year basis. Having a business plan is a great start, but without reviewing where you are against it and analysing if you are on target to achieve your goals or not, means it’ll be hit or miss if you ever get to where you want to be.

3. Update your SWOT analysis at least once a quarter to establish what’s working for your business and where the opportunities are. Use this information to help you improve your weaknesses and limit your threats. Once you’ve got your SWOT completed, then base your plan around it. Too many people write the SWOT and then believe that they’re done!

4. In addition to the above, it’s important that to be able to make a quick decision as to whether business is going to be profitable, you analyse your bottom line when it comes to agreeing new business. Too many managers agree to a business deal that is actually going to make them no profit what-so-ever. Now, there are a few occasions when ‘speculate to accumulate’ comes into play, but there’s got to be a real long-term benefit to the business to do this.

So, once you’ve done all of the analysis, this will give you direction for your business plans, which is next week’s post.

There are 12 posts altogether in this series, with an addition of the original overview post that details all of the management competencies. I hope they’ll be beneficial for you. For the original post with a snapshot of all of the competencies covered in this series, click here – The 12 Competencies of a Manager

The full series of posts: –

1. Management Competencies – Analysing the Business

2. Management Competencies – Strategic Planning

3. Management Competencies – Monitoring the Business

4. Management Competencies – Meeting Goals

5. Management Competencies – Building profitability

6. Management Competencies – Customer Relationship

7. Management Competencies – Team Priorities

8. Management Competencies – High Business Performance

9. Management Competencies – Team Development

10. Management Competencies – Communication

11. Management Competencies – Sales opportunities