Since the Global Financial Crisis a mere 20 per cent of Australian businesses have reported attaining their projected business growth and performance targets. The signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China may present opportunities to some industries; however, others will suffer at the hands of cheaper overseas competitors.
In light of the opportunities and competition opened up from this game-changing FTA, business researchers have identified three problem areas preventing Australian businesses from reaching their growth and performance targets:
The researchers reported that in most cases business growth / performance were lost through poor communications; and yet cloud-based inter-office business software is affordable, accessible and proven to substantially nourish staff co-operation and compatibility.
Next to communication, in retarding Australian business growth and performance, were business workflow inefficiencies. A staggering amount of business success is being missed on account of misaligned goals, irrelevancy of work towards those goals, and poor tracking and reporting of work processes.
Improvements to these inefficiencies are available first and foremost through aligned and integrated business scorecards. These can only be implemented by third-party business-alignment experts, as any scorecards produced within the organisation will lack (or be perceived to lack) objectivity.
These scorecards allow stakeholders to audit and prioritise their current business actions. This allows the business to see itself within the environment of its competitors and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks.
Finally, Australian businesses unable to reach their growth and performance targets routinely lack reliable, informative data. Sometimes this is a by-product of poor information handling and retrieval. More often, however, poor business analysis was symptomatic of a lack of investment in research.
Researchers are at a loss to explain the reticence of businesses towards market research. One reason may be that businesses doubt the independence of research conducted within their own industry. And yet Australian independent market and business research businesses are amongst the best in the world; able to promptly return balanced, authoritative and meaningful data and analysis that directly impact on business growth and performance.
Australian businesses have performance and growth efficiencies within their grasp. But it’s not something they will be able to do on their own.