Assessment

Questions each business leader should consider

The following are questions that each business leader should consider in relation to evaluating the current position of his or her business.

What goals do we aspire to achieve?
Do we have a shared vision and strategy for our business?
What are our specific near and midterm goals?
Is our strategic plan truly strategic or is it an annual plan?
What are the future growth platforms for our business?
What should we do with the other businesses?
Do all of our businesses fit with our corporate vision?
Will our clients themselves be winners or losers in their own markets over the next five years?
What is our go to market strategy and why do we think it will work?
How do we avoid being in the mediocre middle of the pack?
Do we have a sustainable competitive advantage over our competition?
How can we leverage our competitive strengths?
Is our business model sustainable for today and tomorrow?
Do we know why we win and why we lose?
If we started our business from scratch today, would we build what we have?
Do we need to re-invent ourselves to be successful?
Do our businesses have an acceptable risk profile?
Is our organization aligned and equipped for growth?
If our best opportunity for growth became available, could we handle it?
Does our balanced scorecard reflect our strategy?
What progress did we make relative to last year’s plan?

How is our industry evolving?
Do we know how changes in regulation will change our business model?
How is our business vulnerable, today and five years from now?
What could happen to disrupt our market?
If our two major competitors merged tomorrow, how would we respond?
How can we outgrow our competitors and our industry?
How can our business become the industry standard?
Is there a “game changing” competitor or capability in our industry?
How can we leverage our competitive strengths?
What are our most attractive growth opportunities? What makes them attractive?
What new business models are emerging for our business? What do they mean for our organizational structure, product strategies, and distribution channels?
What competitive advantages do we have? Why do we have them? Will we have them tomorrow?
If we want to move up one ranking in our industry, what should we do? How do we become the leader?
Could someone else create more value if they owned some of our businesses?

How do we make money?
What are the cost drivers and levers in our business?
Why don’t we win all the time?
Why do clients buy our products and services? Is this sustainable?
What is each client actually worth to us?
What client segments do we sell to? Will those segments support our future growth aspirations?
How can we maximize value from our portfolio of businesses?
What businesses should we keep and which ones should we sell or shut down?
How can we take out expenses and maintain our current business?
Is our staff spending enough time on value generating activities?
What should we do to enter developing markets?
How can we change our business to get value now instead of five years from now?
How will we meet the growth expectations of our investors?

How do our clients expect us to support their business?
How can we build on our success with our good clients?
What parts of our business creates sustainable value? Why do we have the other parts?
Do we have effective delivery channels? What do we deliver effectively and do we deliver it at the right cost?
What is the return on investment for our sales force?
Do we have the right incentives in place to generate the sales we want? Are we paying too much or too little for revenue generation channels?
Do we have operational excellence in our business? Do our clients value that?

Can we measure risk in our business?
Do we know what risks exist in our business and do we have effective mitigation procedures in place?
Can we change our current go to market strategy without destroying our core business?
Do we have the appropriate amount of corporate infrastructure to support our business?
How can we break down silos and integrate our business effectively to promote better efficiency?
Do we have adequate resources devoted to understanding and mitigating risk?

How does a particular merger and acquisition opportunity fit with our strategic plan?
How can we create value from an acquisition? How do we make a 1+1=3 result from the acquisition?
How can we take advantage of our strengths in the market to grow through a merger and acquisition transaction?
How can we identify merger and acquisition opportunities?
How can we both manage executing a deal and running our day-to-day business?
How do we retain our key talent during the deal?
What is our “story” for our clients?
How does the acquisition plan help our go-to-market strategy?
What are our goals for this deal? Why are we making this investment?
Is this the best use for our investment resources?
How are we going to fund our transformational initiatives?
Has the target been dressed up for sale?
How can we validate what the target is telling us?
Will due diligence only reveal what we need to know about the target’s business potential or fit with our business, or only what currently exists?
Did we do strategic due diligence or an audit?
Do we know when to walk away?

What parts of the target can be integrated immediately and what parts should be integrated later?
How can we realize synergies from the deal quickly?
How can we retain our clients during the integration of the target?
What is our future operating model? How do we get there?
How do we transition IT resources?
How do we rationalize our suppliers?
Are we creating any key dependencies?
How do we select the “new” team?
How do we get to “business as usual” quickly?