The 4 P’s to Help You Build a Great Business

How do you manage a great business, as opposed to be a survivor? Well, here are the four areas you should focus upon every day.

Now, some of us remember things better when given a catchy phrase or rhyme. So, here’s one to help you with squeezing the most out of your own available resources. In this new reality in our business world, there is certainly little room for mistakes and no room for bloat within our companies. Preventing them is our responsibility.

The first “P” stands for people. The wrong person in most any job causes everyone below or above that person in the production system that depend upon that person to operate at a reduced rate or quality of output. And if there are people depending upon the output of that wrongly-placed individual, they too will suffer from reduced resources to complete their jobs. The cost of a bad or failed placement in any position in a company’s critical chain is enormous and goes far beyond the salary paid to that individual. Enough said.

The second “P” is for productivity. But if a good person is failing at their job, it may be because you have not provided the resources necessary for that person to do the job expected. For example: Hire a great sales person then fail to support him or her with a good marketing effort or a properly priced quality product, and that person will be set up to fail, and for reasons you might have fixed.

Then there is the third “P” – performance. Like a great orchestra, it takes a skilled conductor (you) to bring the best out of the collective members of the group. You are responsible for the quality of performance that defines an excellent enterprise and assures long life for the company as competition becomes more aggressive and geographically extended.

The fourth “P” is for process. How do you efficiently get your offering from development to market? How do you stage and tune a production line for maximum quality and output? How do you penetrate an established market with a groundbreaking new product, but on a limited budget? All these are process questions, often faced by management (you) when seeking success.

Now, all of us have limited resources and must deploy them effectively to gain the most possible ground in the marketplace. Like a chain with four links, no one of these listed here can be weak or we frustrate our opportunity for success. We’ve got to focus and pay attention to each to each of these four areas to strengthen the chain.

Future look: Over time we will explore these issues more deeply using the “theory of constraints” (TOC) method of looking into your physical and financial roadblocks.

The four “P’s”: People, productivity, performance and process.

Ask yourself: which of these four P’s is your weakest link? What can you do to rethink, reinforce and redirect resources and remove roadblocks to the success of that link and enhance your whole organization?