YANET HEALTH AND BUSINESS COLLEGE

Improve Business Practice

LEARNING OUTCOMES
LO1. Diagnose the business
LO2. Benchmark the business
LO3. Develop plans to improve business performance
LO4. Develop marketing and promotional plans
LO5.Develop business growth plans
LO6.Implement and monitor plans
 Cont……
• 1. Introduction to business practice
market definition
• An event or occasion usually held at regular
intervals, at which people meet for the purpose
of buying and selling merchandise or
goods/products.
• A regular gathering of people for the purchase
and sale of provisions, livestock, and other
commodities.
 Cont……
• An actual or nominal place where forces of
supply operate, and where buyers and sellers
interact (directly or through intermediaries) to
trade goods, services, or contracts or
instruments, for money or barter/exchange.
 Markets include mechanisms or means for:-
1. determining price of the traded item
2. communicating the price information
 Cont……….
3 facilitating deals and transactions
4 effecting distribution
• The market for a particular item is made up of
existing and potential customers who need it
and have the ability and willingness to pay for
it.
 Cont…
• Definition of 'Market'
• 1. A medium that allows buyers and sellers of a specific
good or service to interact in order to facilitate an
exchange. The price that individuals pay during the
transaction may be determined by a number of factors,
but price is often determined by the forces of supply
and demand.
• 2. The general market where securities are traded.
• 3. People with the desire and ability to buy a specific
product/service.
 Diagnosis the business
• . Diagnose the business
• 2.1 Data required for diagnosis
• 2.2 Competitive advantage of the business
• 2.3 SWOT analysis
• • The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool
for understanding and decision-making for all
sorts of situations in business and organizations.
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats.
 Cont…
• The SWOT analysis headings provide a good
framework for reviewing strategy, position and
direction of a company or business proposition,
or any other idea.
• SWOT analysis (alternatively SWOT Matrix) is a
structured planning method used to evaluate the
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and
Threats involved in a project or in a business
venture
 Cont….
• A SWOT analysis can be carried out for a product, place,
industry or person. It involves specifying the objective of
the business venture or project and identifying the
internal and external factors that are favorable and
unfavorable to achieving that objective.
• 1. Diagnose the business
• 1.1. Acquire and determine data required for diagnosis
• Enterprise is defined as a business organization that exists
either to produce some products, or to provide some
kinds of service as part of their profit seeking activities
 Cont……
• The service provided can be healthcare, finance,
utility, telecommunication, transportation,
maintenance, sanitary, etc
• The enterprise in the business of producing some
products is a manufacturing enterprise and the
enterprise in the business of providing service is a
service enterprise.
• . Enterprise data are necessary to ensure that each
manufacturing or service enterprise system is run
efficiently and effectively.
 Cont……
• , a service enterprise system exists to provide necessary service
to their clients. To be competitive, an enterprise system must be
lean, able to produce good quality parts/subassemblies/products
or service, and responsive to customers’ needs/demands.
• A lean, quality, and responsive enterprise system cannot be
achieved without good engineering and management practices in
all aspects of system operations including marketing, sales,
product design, purchasing and supplier management, process
development, task execution, process monitoring, process
control, process improvement, warehouse management, quality
control, logistics management, customer relationship
management, and so on.
 Cont..
There are many benefits that can be obtained by
diagnosing your business
1. There are an enormous number of activities you can
undertake to improve your business. Business
diagnosis can help you identify which of these
choices will the most effective in growing your
business
2. Business diagnosis saves time and improves returns
by providing more accurate and effective decision
making.
 Cont….
3 Business diagnosis allows you to identify business goals
and to describe them in concrete manageable terms.
4 Business diagnosis provides you with a benchmark
against which to measure your progress.
5 Growth Plan business diagnosis will provide a holistic
analysis of your businesses covering financial, staff
structure, resource and client productivity, management
issues, lifestyle, representation systems and leadership.
This is consistent with Growth Plan philosophy of
assisting to provide growth in financial and non-financial
returns.
1.2. Determine competitive advantage of the
business
• What does your company do best? Or better yet,
• what can your company potentially do better than
any other company? And perhaps just as
important,
• what can it not do best?
• Specifically, it is your company's unique skills and
resources working to implement strategies that
competitors cannot implement as effectively.
 What is Your Competitive Advantage?

• what is your firm's competitive advantage?

• Do you have one? And
• if you do, are you focusing on it?
Putting Competitive Advantage to the Test
Now it is time to put your competitive advantage to the test. How do you know
when you have developed a sustainable competitive advantage? Here are three
criteria that can help evaluate if you are on the right track and keep you there:
• Customers must see a consistent difference between your product/service and
those of your competitor's. This difference needs to be obvious to your customers
and it must influence their purchasing decision. Example: Coca cola vs. Pepsi.
• Your competitive advantage must be difficult to imitate
• The above two items combined must be activities that can be constantly
improved, nurtured, and work at to maintain that edge over your competition.
 Cont…
• 1.3. Undertake SWOT analysis
• SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method
used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats involved in a
project or in a business venture. It involves
specifying the objective of the business
venture or project and identifying the internal
and external factors that are favorable and
unfavorable to achieve that objective
 Cont..
• • Strengths: characteristics of the business or
team that give it an advantage over others in the
industry.
• • Weaknesses: are characteristics that place the
firm at a disadvantage relative to others.
• • Opportunities: external chances to make
greater sales or profits in the environment.
• • Threats: external elements in the environment
that could cause trouble for the business.
 Cont….
• Internal and external factors
• The aim of any SWOT analysis is to identify the
key internal and external factors that are
important to achieving the objective.
• • Internal factors – The strengths and
weaknesses internal to the organization.
• • External factors – The opportunities and
threats presented by the external environment
to the organization
 Cont…
• 2. Benchmark The Business
• What is benchmarking?
•  Benchmarking is simply the process of measuring the
performance of one's company against the best in the same or
another industry. Benchmarking is basically learning from others.
•  Therefore, benchmarking is a continuous systematic/
structured/formal process for assessing/measuring/comparing the
organizations.
•  In business, benchmarking has come to mean variety of things. It
has assumed a very special significance in today’s competitive world.
Benchmarking is one of the many techniques that one can employ to
gather management information.
 Cont…
• 2.2. Sources of relevant benchmarking data
• Identify relevant of source and Key indicators for
benchmarking
• Benchmarking is the process of identifying "best practice"
in relation to both products (including) and the processes
by which those products are created and delivered.
• The objective of benchmarking is to understand and
evaluate the current position of a business or organization
in relation to "best practice" and to identify areas and
means of performance improvement.
 cont,…………
• The Benchmarking Process
• Benchmarking involves looking outward (outside)to examine
how others achieve their performance levels and to
understand the processes they use.
• Application of benchmarking involves four key steps:
• (1) Understand in detail existing business processes
• (2) Analyze the business processes of others
• (3) Compare own business performance with that of others
analyzed
• (4) Implement the steps necessary to close the performance
gap.
 Cont…..

• Types of Benchmarking
There are a number of different types of benchmarking, as
summarized below
• Strategic Benchmarking
• Performance or Competitive Benchmarking
• Process Benchmarking
• Functional Benchmarking
• Internal Benchmarking
• External Benchmarking
• International Benchmarking
 Cont..
• 2.3. Like indicators of own practice
• Compare own practice with benchmark indicator
• A little insight about what your competitors are doing can dramatically
improve your strategy and investment decisions.
• Among businesses in the same market space, the owner should answer
the following critical questions to know the status of their own business.
• • are the most financially successful performers investing heavily on
certain functions?
• • Are some businesses vulnerable to attack because they aren’t
investing enough in a game-changing process?
• • Where are the cost gaps that represent opportunities to improve
efficiency?
 cont,..
• Benchmarking can help you better understand how efficiently different
parts of your business are operating by comparing your process
performance to those of your direct peers
• Effective benchmarking can help an organization on its effort to:
• 1. identify opportunity to reduce service costs and increase service
quality
• 2. gain insight into relative strengths and weaknesses compared to other
organizations in the same industry
• 3. combat organization competency and the perception that current
performance is acceptable
• 4. change the way they view their performance by providing both
qualitative and quantitative measure of service operation effectiveness
• 5. support business imperatives/very important
 Cont..
2.4. Areas for improvement
Identify area of improvement
 Measuring and improving performance starts with our
unique three-step benchmarking process:
• Benchmark current operational efficiency against the
most efficient service providers in mature and emerging
markets
• Assess the efficiency of work processes to identify areas
for improvement
• Develop solutions to raise performance in these areas.
 Con.
• Role of Benchmarking
• The role of benchmarking is to provide management
with knowledge of what constitutes ‘best
performance’ or ‘superior performance’ in a particular
field. Best performance relates to output, efficiency,
quality and any other measurement relevant to
performing the job.
• Benchmarking not only investigates what best practice
means in terms of performance yardsticks but also
examine how best practices is achieved.
 cont
•  Generally, there are three reasons that benchmarking
is becoming more commonly used in industry.
• These are:
•  Benchmarking is a more efficient way to make
improvements.
•  Benchmarking speeds up organization’s ability to
make improvements.
•  Benchmarking has the ability to bring organizational
performance up as a whole significantly.
 Cont…
 Types of benchmarking
 There are four primary types of
benchmarking.
• Process benchmarking
• Performance benchmarking
• Strategic benchmarking
• Internal benchmarking
 Con..
• There are four main steps that should to be
followed to conduct benchmarking.
• Step 1 – Plan the study
• Establish benchmarking roles and
responsibilities
• Identify the process to benchmark
• Document the current process
• Define the measures for data collection
 Cont…
• Step 2 – Collect the data
• Record current performance levels
• Find benchmarking partners
• Conduct the primary investigation
• Make a site visit
• Step 3 – Analyze the data
• Normalize the performance data
• Construct a comparison matrix to compare
your current performance data with your
partners’ data
• Identify outstanding practices
• Isolate process enablers
 Cont..
• Step 4 – Adapt enablers to implement
improvements
• Set stretching targets
• “Vision” an alternative process
• Consider the barriers to change
• Plan to implement the changes
 cont..
• 3. Develop Plan To Improve Business Performance
• Develop a Consolidated/combine list of required improvements
• Every executive and business owner has one key objective and that is
to improve performance.
You can improve your business on a number of fronts:
• • by increasing profits,
• • reducing losses,
• • getting more customers,
• • expanding the markets,
• • becoming more visible in the community,
• • Going public or a number of other items deemed/considered
desirable
 Cont…
• You must have a vision of:-
• what you want to achieve?
• where you want to go? and what you want the business to
become?
• Learn ten ways you can improve your business:
1. Start the year in high gear (mechanism).
2. Dust-off your business plans. Review, review and review your
businesses plan.
3. Rekindle/renew your relationship with your customers. The start of
the year is the perfect time
Contact your customers to greet them "Happy New Year!" and remind
them that your business is ready to serve them this year.
 Cont..
• 4. Evaluate your pricing. You don't want to overprice
• 5. Find ways to cut your costs
• 6. Resolve to improve your weak spots.
• 7. Institute measures to assess the performance of
your business.
• 8. Keep employees involved.
• 9. Explore new markets or improve marketing. Start
the year by exploring new markets for your business.
• 10. Find out how you can live a more balanced life.
 Cont…
• Determine Cost-Benefit Ratio For Required
Improvement
• A benefit-cost ratio (BCR) is an indicator, used in the
formal discipline of cost-benefit analysis, that
attempts to summarize the overall value of money of
a project or proposal.
• Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes called
benefit–cost analysis (BCA), is an economic decision-
making approach, used particularly in government
and business.
 Cont..
• determine work flow change resulting from
proposed improvement
• A workflow consists of a sequence of connected
steps.
• A workflow is a model to represent real work for
further assessment.
• Workflow concepts are closely related to other
concepts used to describe organizational
structure
 Cont..
• 4. Develop marketing and promotional plans
• 4.1 How to develop objectives and vision statements
• 4.1.1 Developing business growth objectives
• Objectives are at the center of everything does business so a firm must be careful
when setting to objectives to ensure they can be met.
It is good practice for firm to set SMART objectives:
• • Specific: set out clearly what is trying to be achieved
• • Measurable: so they know when it has been achieved (Put a figure or value, such
as a dollar amount or percentage, to the objective)
• • Achievable: it must succeed
• • Realistic: Make goals challenging, but consider your resources so that you can
actually achieve them reasonably
• • Time specific: a time span to achieve them within (Set a deadline to keep things
on track)
 Cont..
• There are three objectives that are commonly associated with all
organization. Those are;
•  Survival objectives
•  Growth objectives
•  Profit objectives
• 4.1.2. Develop Vision Statements
• A Vision is defined as an image of the future we seek to create.
• A Vision Statements is a sentence or short paragraph providing a
broad, aspiration image /goal/ of the future business.
• Vision Statements therefore contain details of the company- its
vision (the future plans with aims and objectives) and these types of
Statements focus on tomorrow.
 Cont…
• Identification of Target markets
• 4.2.1Definition of target Markets
• Target markets focus marketing and sales efforts towards the companies
and people /most likely to buy your products and services
• A good methodology is to introduce profiles of the four broadest markets.
Each profile defines potential target markets for sales opportunities.
• 1. Non-Customer Profile
• The non-customer profile is someone who has never been a customer of
you.
• 2. First Time Buyer Market Profile
• First time buyer is a person or business has purchased your products for
the first time.
 Cont..
• 3. Customer Market Profile
• The customer market profile consists of companies or people
who have purchased from you more than once.
• There are several good methods for segmenting your
customer base.
Frequency. How frequently the customer purchases from you.
• Recently. How recently the customer purchased from you.
Duration. How long the customer has been purchasing from
you.
Intensity. How much the customer purchases from you.
 Cont..
• 4. Loyal Customer Market Profile
• A Loyal Customer is a customer with a
successful track record with the company and
has been purchasing from you for three years
or longer. Loyal customers are your best
customers.
• A primary goal of every business is to build
loyal customers.
 Cont..
• How to identifying your target market
• Here are some points to help you to identify
your target market;
•  Look at Your Current Customer Base
•  Check Out Your Competition
•  Analyze Your Product/Service. Write out a
list of each feature of your products or service.
•  Choose Specific Demographics to Target
 Cont…
• Figure out not only who has a need for your product or service, but
also who is most likely to buy it. Think about the following factors:
• • Age
• • Location
• • Gender
• • Income level
• • Education level
• • Marital or family status
• • Occupation
• • Ethnic background
•  Divide Your Markets
 Cont..
• Divide Your Markets
• Your target market may include several
different segments in terms of:
• • demographics
• • geographic location
• • attitudes and beliefs
• • purchasing trends
 Cont..
#Choose Which Markets to Serve
• # Consider the Psychographics of Your Target
• Psychographics are more personal characteristics of a person, including:
• • Personality
• • Attitudes
• • Values
• • Interests/hobbies
• • Lifestyles
• • Behavior
•  Evaluate Your Decision
•  Collect Additional Resources
 Cont..
4.2.3 Benefits of Knowing the Target Market
The more you know about the people in your
target market, the better.
You can spend more advertising and
marketing dollars focused on a smaller
audience more likely to purchase your product
or service, rather than a larger group that is
less likely to purchase.
 Cont..
• 4.3. Obtain Market research data
• 4.3.1. Defining of market research
• Marketing research is the function that links the consumer,
customer, and public to the marketer through information
• Information used to:-
• • identify and define marketing opportunities and
problems;
• • generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions;
• • monitor marketing performance; and
• • Improve understanding of marketing as a process.
 Cont..
• Market research is simply research into a
specific market. It is a very narrow concept.
• Marketing research specifies the information
required to address these issues, designs the
methods for collecting information, manages
and implements the data collection process,
analyzes, and communicates the findings and
their implications."
 cont
• 4.3.3 Major Sources of Market Research Information
• Various methods of market research are used to find out information about
markets, target markets and their needs, competitors, market trends, customer
satisfaction with products and services, etc.
• That source information’s are internal and external source of data.
• 1. Internal source of data;
•  Employees
•  Comment Cards;
•  Competition;
•  Customers;
•  Documentation and Records;
•  Focus Groups;
•  Surveys by Mail;
•  Telephone Surveys;
 Cont..

• 2. External source of data are;

•  Census Bureau/survey agency;
•  Chamber of Commerce;
•  Department of Commerce;
•  Ask Librarians;
•  Trade and Professional Organizations;
•  trade associations/journals;
•  Internet;
•  client surveys
•  industry report
• 4.3.3.1 Other source of market research data
•  Primary marketing research: is collected for the first time.
•  We consider some of them:
• 1. Interviews
• 2. Mystery shopping
• 3. Focus groups
• 4. Projective techniques
• 5. Product tests
• 6. Diaries
• 7. Omnibus Studies
•  Secondary marketing research or desk research; already exist in one
form or another. It is relatively cheap, and can be conducted quite quickly
 Cont..
• 4.4. Obtain Competitor Analysis
•  Competitor analysis in marketing and
strategic management is an assessment of the
strengths and weaknesses of current and
potential competitors.
• This analysis provides both an offensive and
defensive strategic context to identify
opportunities and threats.
 Cont…
• Elements of Competitive Analysis
• There are several important elements of competitive analysis;
Major aspects of competitive analysis include the following:
•  Defining competitors;
•  Analysis of competitor strengths and weaknesses
•  Analysis of internal strengths and weaknesses;
•  Analysis of customer needs and wants;
•  Studying impediments/obstacles to market for you and
your competition;
•  Building strategic plans to improve marketplace position
 Cont..
• 4.4.1. Competitor offerings/contributions
• Competitive offering is an offering of securities
through competitive bidding/request.
• 4.5 Market position development
• 4.5.1 Definition of market positioning
• Marketing positioning mean the process by
which marketers try to create an image.
 Cont.
• 4.6. Brand Development
• Brand is a set of perceptions and images that represent a company,
product or service.
• Brand is the trademark (name, logo, slogan etc.) used by marketers to
distinguish their products from other products in the market and to
position it rightly. Or
• Brand is a symbol, name, graphic identity and logotype that allow the
effective identification of one company, product or service from its
competitors and is able to create an emotional response in the minds
and hearts of its customer base.
• Style Brands provides marketing, design, printing, websites,
promotional gifts, corporate clothing, printer cartridges, furniture, and
office supplies.
 Cont..
• 4.7. Promotion
• 4.7.1. Definition of promotion
• Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix (product, price,
promotion, and place).
• Promotion includes all activities designed to inform, persuade and influence
people when they are making the decision to buy.
• 4.7.2 Components (elements) of the promotion system
• The specification of five elements creates a promotional mix or promotional plan.
These elements are;
• 1. Advertising-
• 2. Personal selling
• 3. Sales promotion-
• 4. Publicity- uses mass media and it is none personal.
• 5. Direct marketing
 Cont..
• Fundamentally, however there are three basic objectives of
promotion. These are:
• 1. To present information to consumers as well as others
• 2. To increase demand
• 3. To differentiate a product.
• There are different ways to promote a product in different areas
of media. Promoters use
• • Internet advertisement,
• • Special events,
• • Endorsements, and
• • Newspapers to advertise their product.
 Cont..
• 4.8. Identifying Benefits of best practice products/services
• What is a Best Practice?
• A best practice is the process of finding and using ideas and strategies from outside your company
and industry to improve performance in any given area.

• Benefits of Best Practices for Small Business

•  Reduce Costs
•  Avoid Mistakes:
•  Find New Ideas:
• Steps for Best Practices
•  Identify one business process or service to improve.
•  Look for one metric to measure.
•  Find competitors and companies within your industry and outside your industry
•  Collect information on the successful, best practices of other companies.
•  Modify the best practice for your situation.
•  Implement the process then measure the results.
• 5. Develop business growth plans
 Cont…
LO 5, Develop business growth plans
• 5.1 Plans to increase yield per existing client
• Customer retention is about keeping the customers
you’ve spent that money to acquire.
5.2 Developing Plans to add new clients
• The growth strategy section of your business plan is
about proving to others that you have a plan for
bringing your product to new customers and new
markets, and perhaps even introducing new products.
 Cont..
• The obvious objective in outlining your growth strategy is to show
how these moves will increase sales. This can happen in a number
of ways:
• Multiple locations:
• New client bases:
• New products
• Franchising/license:
• Online strategy:
• Marketing: Look back at the marketing section of your business plan
• Decreasing costs:
• Acquisitions/achievement
 Cont..
– Proposed plans
• Proposing a business plan can be an important process for your business.
• Step 1
• Review your business plan to be sure it is up-to-date with all of its data and information.
• Step 2
• Research your audience to find out what is important to the audience members, and what
kind of information they may be looking for.
• Step 3
• Develop a focus that you would like to give the audience during your presentation. Each
business proposal presentation needs to have a specific target in mind.
• Step 4
• Design materials specific to your presentation that you can leave with your audience.
• Step 5
• Practice your proposal presentation in front of colleagues and friends to make sure it flow
properly, and that you have left enough spots for questions.
 Cont..
– Developing an action plan
• Action plan a sequence of steps that must be taken, or
activities that must be performed well, for a business to
succeed. An action plan has three major elements ;
• (1) Specific tasks: what will be done and by whom.
• (2) Time horizon: when will it be done.
• (3) Resource allocation: what specific funds are
available for specific activities?
• An action plan is developing to implement the top
ranked plans for business growth.
 Cont…
• How to write an action plan
• When writing an action plan to achieve a particular goal
or outcome, you can get much help from the following
steps.
• Clarify your goal.
• Write a list of actions
• Analyze, prioritize, and prune.
• Organize your list into a plan.
• Monitor the execution of your plan and review the plan
regularly.
 Cont…
6 Implement and monitor plans
• 6.1 Developing Implementation plan
• Implementation is the carrying out, execution, or
practice of a plan, a method, or any design for
doing something.
• Implementation plan Detailed listing of activities
, costs, expected difficulties, and schedules that
are required to achieve the objectives of the
strategic plans.
 Cont…
• An implementation plan will assist you in moving the project from
development to service provision. Implementation plans will vary from
business to business.
• Use your implementation plan to:

• determine a time line for implementation

• train and educate service providers
• define roles and responsibilities of service providers
• develop written protocols for referrals
• develop communication protocols among service providers and the working
group
• develop policies and procedures
• confirm performance indicators based on your logic model
 Cont…
• Agreeing Indicators to success of plan
• An indicator provides evidence that a certain condition exists or
certain results have or have not been achieved. Indicators enable
decision-makers to assess progress towards the achievement of
intended outputs, outcomes, goals, and objectives. As such, indicators
are an integral part of a results-based accountability system.
• Types of Indicators
• Indicators can measure
• inputs,
• process,
• outputs, and
• Outcomes.
 Cont..
– Monitoring Implementation against agreed indicators
• Monitoring the implementation of your strategic plan is important for a
number of reasons. First, it helps to assure that your efforts conform to the
plan.
• Second, you have got to be sure the results you achieve align with your
quantified objectives.
• And since monitoring is part of a control process, it encourages improved
performance.
• Finally, and most importantly, monitoring provides the essential link between
the written plan and the day-to-day operation of your business.
• It demonstrates to all that "you really are managing the business according to
your plan".
• Implementation plan helps to business man to changing tactics, changing
strategy’s and Last choice – you would compromise your objective.
 Cont…

END