Simpler Business Institute

Start Your Turnaround

This tool gives you the first steps we use in any business to start the turnaround process. It is not the starting point if the business is already insolvent, but it will provide great input to this should you be in this situation. It is based on our experience turning around businesses during the recession in the early 1990s and the technology crash in the early 2000s.

The method looks for a place in the business to start where there will be the greatest motivation for owners and/or managers to take early action. It defines what are your most "profitable or attractive" business activities and, conversely, what are your most "unattractive" business activities. Armed with this information, you can confidently state to your people that "We're going to improve our performance by doing less of the stuff that's bad for our business and more of the stuff that's good!" The key steps are:

Step 1 = Print reports of 1) Sales of each Product and 2) Sales to each Customer, in descending order, for your Year-to-Date and previous Financial Year, then look to the ends of these lists and ask "should we be doing this work?"

Step 2 = Define the breadth and depth of your business as a table of key product groups and key customer groups, then get input from your key people on what is profitable and what is less or un-profitable.

Step 3 = Determine the product and/or customer groups that are "attractive" and "unattractive" for your business - to do this you'll need the Business Attractiveness tool explained in the book Simpler Business.

Step 4 = Set the actions to get everyone to Stop Doing the business that is "unattractive" to you.

Step 5 = Check that all your projects and activities align with the "attractive" business (or reverse the "unattractive" things)

Simpler business is a lot about deciding what not to do! Don't waste time thinking about how you are going to find the time to learn about yet another business improvement program. Your first action must be to stop doing those things that are not giving you a positive return.

If you'd like to know more about how to use this tool to improve your business, or to access our corporate education programs on simpler business techniques, please get in touch with one of our coaches by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Simply does it!

Ian Dover

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