Enterprise Assessment

Knowing how to assess your enterprise’s development in terms of progress is sometimes hard to determine in quantifiable terms. There are sales figures, revenues, costs and other manner of financial figures but what does this all mean in attaining the level of success you aspire to. Is there something that is lagging behind that will ultimately cause an unforeseen business shock. We will show you how to conduct an Enterprise Assessment, to help you plan for the future.

Potestas have developed a ‘simple reckoner’ based on a number of key business aspects to assess your current progress and a gauge of where this fits in with being viable and sustainable. The questions are based upon: –

• Key activities of your business e.g. sales, revenue, resources, product/ service fit, sales, revenue
• Questions that uncover how advanced you are …. Is the customer need, critical enough to make them buy?
• Critical positions to consider when answering the questions ….What is the customer’s perspective and buying style?
• A scoring system that quantifies progress (0 – 3 score for each question and three questions for each aspect.)

This is an essential component of getting the most out of your assessment, finding a suitable candidate(s) to discuss your business idea and progress. We can give you some pointers on the preferable qualities of the assessor: –

• Understands the environment your business is addressing
• Can make an informed view of where it could fit in the market place
• Knows the different aspects of a business model
• Is not directly involved in your business
• Has a track record of involvement in a business
• Prepared to be neutral and give reasons for his views

The intent of the questionnaire is give you the: –

1. Opportunity to discuss your business with an informed business savvy outsider.
2. Ability to scrutinized your core activity with simple questions and open ended answers.
3. Identify any progress issues that are of concern, in a neutral environment.
4. Score your progress in terms of how advanced you are to becoming sustainable.
5. Overall picture of the business core activities and what needs more focus.

It is unusual to score highly on all aspects. If this happens it could mean you are not considering the reality of the situation or the business is mature and you need to be considering a new direction to compensate for a gradual decline in this model.

Potestas produce a radar diagram of the results of the questionnaire that gives a clear view of the current position. We use this to discuss with you the areas that are working and those that need closer scrutiny.  We can provide you focused sessions to analyse the situation for say Marketing to come to working plan to move forward.

This diagram shows that the enterprise is in its very early stages and has perhaps carried out the initial validation of the business idea. Stronger progress has been made in the product development, sales process and resource capability at this stage. We would collaborate with the entrepreneur to decide what the options were available to improve all the aspects and formulate a plan of how this could be achieved.

As the business develops in maturity, the radar diagram is designed to allow future assessments, based on the business roadmap and key achievement milestones. Once these are achieved then assessment can be done again not necessarily based on the original business environment but on the next expansion or change in direction.

The enterprise assessment is a living document and is used to progressively determine: –

• Activities to focus on
• Help formulate an action plan in for key activities
• Show that the business is making progress
• Allows changes in business activity to be assessed independently

The Enterprise Assessment is a quick way to get an overview of progress and indicate where to focus future effort. It opens up discussion about your business activity and starts to generate new possibilities.  The priority is to determine how to achieve your vision with less effort and resources.

The exercise can be carried out on existing ventures at any development stage and can be repeated periodically to gauge progress. If you want to get started, contact us now.