The advantage of Zero-Based thinking is that you are starting with a clean slate! There should be few pre-conceived notions with your primary focus on how to best go to market and take great care of your customers based on what’s going on today (and the days, weeks and months forthcoming).
Three opening action items to participate in are recommended:
1. A new SWOT Analysis – SWOT Analyses (An assessment of current Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) can be very revealing. It is suggested that you have several of your smartest people participating in this exercise. Incidentally, if you do one every year, it should look different every year. This speaks well of the concept of constant fine-tuning of your business strategies and actions rather than doing what you have always done!
2. Have in-depth discussions with your top 5 customers. Identify the agendas of the top 2-3 people running those companies if you can get to them. If you can’t, talk to the most senior officers you can. Find out what is critically important to each of them and how you/your company might be able to positively impact them. Get passionate about providing the best and most targeted products the marketplace wants.
3. Put together “Deliverables Meetings” with 4-5 key people in your company to ascertain what you should add to or delete from your current product line or service offerings. Make sure you do Item #1 and Item #2 before you do Item #3 for best results. These can be some of your most important decisions going forward. When you vary your offerings from your competition, you have purposefully differentiated yourself in what is probably a crowded marketplace.
With a Zero-based thinking approach you can also consider such important areas as: employee compensation, capital expenditures, advanced marketing plans, and various areas of expansion and contractions.
It is also a good time to do a “Deep-dive” on research. The knowledge mass of the human race is now said to be doubling approximately every 3 ½ years! What’s changing in your industry? To assume not much is changing is usually a serious miscalculation of your current reality. What are some things that might well be changing?
1. Customer Needs
2. Employee’s priorities
3. Latest technologies in your business
4. Latest technology changes in general
5. Special or new applications of products
6. Financial applications
7. Expanded service requirements
8. New windows of opportunities
9. Closing windows of opportunity
10. Compensation in your industry
These are just some of the elements of change in a typical business. Give in-depth thought to others that would apply to your business and stay on top of current issues. It is better to figure out how to capitalize on changes rather than becoming a victim of them!
I suggest that you make a list of actions to cease and actions to take – with timelines. And ask yourself who should be “in the loop” on the various activities mentioned for best results. Be as creative as you can in tapping the collective intellect of your team members for best results.