2006 Q1 Top 10 List for Business Success
From David Letterman’s nightly top 10 list, to football rankings, to book and DVD bestseller lists, top 10 lists are a popular way to convey priorities or rankings. Here’s an update to SPG’s top 10 list for business success, originally published in 1994.
The list is meant to generate discussion about what a company needs to do in order for it achieve exceptional performance. Depending upon your industry and company situation, the order of the list may vary significantly. Ask yourself what you are doing in each of the 10 areas to improve your company. You can be reasonably sure that your competitors are working on their own list of priorities.
10. Competitive Intelligence – Understanding what your competitors are doing and why. Where are they vulnerable? What competitive advantage do they have and how are they using those advantages?
9. Core Competency – What does your company do extremely well that is giving you a competitive advantage? It may be a specific skill set, brand equity, technical know-how, etc. Without a core competency a company is highly vulnerable to losing any competitive advantages it may have had.
8. Benchmarking – Comparing yourself against the leaders in other industries provides a measurement of the gap between your company’s performance and those companies considered to be the best in a specific process.
7. Empowered Work Force – Developing your employees by providing them with the knowledge, skills and resources to make decisions at the lowest possible levels within your company.
6. Continuous Improvement – Both product and service quality is important. Striving for continuous improvement in your business can be made by following Dr. Deming’s 14-point program.
5. Customer Loyalty – It has been demonstrated that the most loyal customers are also a company’s most profitable customers. Meeting or exceeding customer expectations in those areas most important to them will help retain them as a customer for life.
4. Strategic Focus – A business must have a core strategy that focuses on serving a specific market need rather than on marketing a specific product for that need.
3. Communications – Effective communications help employees work together and breeds trust within an organization by sharing ideas and concerns. Our research indicates that lack of communications is the #1 issue in over 90% of companies surveyed.
2. Shared Vision – Everyone in the organization must understand the vision for the business and have a genuine commitment to see it happen. Employees are much more productive when they understand the importance of their role in helping achieve the company’s vision.
1. Leadership – Developing a culture that encourages leadership at all levels in an organization is a long-term process. Modeling the behavior that is critical to your company’s success is an important first step.