How Healthy Is Your Business? Why Every Business Needs a Regular Health Check

Oct 1

4 min read

Running a business can be demanding. There are customers to look after, people to manage, finances to monitor, work to deliver and problems to solve.

When you're immersed in the day-to-day, however, it can be surprisingly difficult to answer a very simple question:

How healthy is your business?

You probably know your sales figures. You may know what's in the bank. You certainly know when something isn't working.

But business health is about much more than revenue or profit.

It is about how effectively the different parts of your business work together — and whether your management practices are helping or hindering performance.

That's why we've developed the ASI Business Health Check.

You can't improve what you don't measure

This principle sits at the heart of the ASI approach.

The ASI Business Health Check provides a quick assessment of the key management disciplines within your business, helping identify where you're performing well and where improvement may be needed. On completion, you receive an immediate Business Health Score to help you better understand your priorities.

It isn't about finding fault with your business.

It's about gaining perspective.

Most businesses have areas they manage particularly well and others that have evolved informally as the business has grown. Processes that worked with three employees may not work with 15. Marketing activities that once generated enquiries may no longer be delivering results. Systems may have developed independently rather than as part of an overall management framework.

A Health Check helps you look beyond individual problems and consider the business as a whole.

Are you managing the business — or just managing the day?

This is an important distinction.

Business owners and managers can spend enormous amounts of time being busy without necessarily strengthening the underlying business.

Emails get answered. Quotes go out. Customers are served. Staff issues are resolved. Invoices are paid.

Another week disappears.

But when did you last stop and systematically consider the way the business itself is being managed?

A useful business health assessment encourages you to consider the disciplines that underpin sustainable performance rather than concentrating solely on today's operational demands.

That process can expose some important questions.

Do we have a clear direction?
Do we understand our financial performance?
Are we generating enough of the right opportunities?
Are our people clear about what's expected of them?
Are our systems and processes helping us operate efficiently?
Are we using technology effectively?
Where are the biggest opportunities for improvement?

And perhaps most importantly:

What should we work on first?

From assumptions to insight

One of the risks in business management is making decisions based on what we think is happening.

We think customers are satisfied.

We think our marketing is working.

We think our systems are efficient.

We think employees understand their responsibilities.

We think we're making enough margin.

Sometimes we're right.

Sometimes we're not.

Measurement provides a starting point for challenging those assumptions.

The purpose isn't to create more reports or management administration. It's to develop a clearer understanding of where the business currently stands so that time, money and management attention can be directed toward the areas that matter.

Your score isn't the destination

Receiving a Business Health Score is useful — but the number itself isn't the objective.

The real value comes from what you do with the insight.

A lower score in a particular area doesn't necessarily mean there's a crisis. It may simply identify an opportunity to introduce a better process, develop management knowledge, clarify responsibilities or investigate an issue more closely.

Likewise, a strong result can identify practices worth protecting and building upon.

This is where the ASI philosophy becomes particularly relevant:

LEARN. APPLY. IMPROVE.

Learn what good business management looks like.

Apply appropriate principles, systems, tools and practices within your own organisation.

Improve by measuring the results and continuing to refine the way the business operates.

Business improvement doesn't have to mean undertaking a massive transformation program.

Often, meaningful improvement comes from identifying the right small changes and consistently implementing them.

Who should complete the Health Check?

The Health Check can be useful for an established business owner who wants a fresh perspective, a manager trying to improve an area of responsibility, or someone wanting to strengthen their practical understanding of business management.

It can also be interesting to have more than one person within the same business complete it independently.

Does the owner see the business the same way as the general manager?

Does the operations manager identify different weaknesses?

Do members of the leadership team agree on the priorities?

Those differences can sometimes generate a more valuable management discussion than the score itself.

What happens next?

The ASI Business Health Check is intended as a starting point.

If the results identify areas you'd like to understand more deeply, ASI Business can move beyond the initial Health Check into a more detailed Business Diagnostic and other business-management resources and support.

But you don't need to commit to anything further.

Start by finding out where you are.

Then decide what, if anything, you want to improve.

So, how's business?

It's a question we ask each other all the time.

Usually the answer is something like:

"Good."

"Busy."

"Could be better."

Perhaps there's a better answer.

Measure it.

Take a few minutes to look at your business from a different perspective and identify where you're doing well — and where there may be opportunities to improve.