Services - Starpoint

Directional

Regardless of your type of business or operation it is important to have a clear vision of where you are going. This can be a corporate macro requirement or a divisional micro issue. Many companies attempt to set strategies and action items on the fly without get a clear understand of two key issues:

Where are you today?
Where do you want to be?

It is only with a clear understanding of your current situation, your goals and what’s on your horizon, that you can identify solid action items that will move you towards your goals.

Operational

As a company moves through time, previously effective structures and processes can become inefficient or dysfunctional and may be restricting future growth. It is important to review processes and sometimes change, realign or even remove some of these.

A key question to ask here is “Knowing what you now know about a particular process would you use it? If “NO”, then you need to change it.”

Financial

Do you fully understand your financial statements? What about managing cash-flow? Do you understand what your Balance Sheet and Income Statements are telling you? Are you holding regular management meetings and reviewing your financial results monthly? Understanding your passion is for your business, but it is critical that your business is financially strong in order to prosper and grow.

performance

How are you performing? Where are your inefficiencies? How do you measure your successes? More market share does not guarantee more profit! What are your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators such as Gross Margins, Inventory Turns, Net Profit)? It is important to look at each component of your business and identify specific and measurable performance indicators.

Another component of the Starpoint Approach, and one of the most valuable, is on-going, periodic consultation. Once you have the tools and measures in place, who is going to keep you on target? Often, having a regular sounding board is the difference between success and failure.

The Starpoint Approach

Some of the tools that can be used are:

SWOTT: What are your Strengths, Weaknesses, what are the Opportunities and Threats in your environment, and what are the major Trends you are facing?

LONG-TERM GOALS: What are your five- to ten-year objectives as an owner/shareholder and for your business enterprise

MEDIUM GOALS: What are your two- to three-year requirements that will move you towards your long-term goals?

THE ROAD MAP: What are the twelve- to twenty-four-month action items that need to be undertaken? Who will be responsible for each of them and what is the comp?

KPI’s: Identification of what Key Performance Indicators and how are you going to measure against these KPIs.

BUSINESS MODELLING: What is the past financial performance of your business and what financial goals do you want to achieve?

NEEDS ANALYSIS: What are the resources that you need to achieve tangible movement? People resources; Financial resources; Equipment resources; Sales & marketing resources; Operating processes.