ADVOCATE COLUMN 4th WEEK NOVEMBER 2012

Businesses are only as successful as their owners and managers. They operate in a dynamic, changing environment that requires the business leader to constantly and deliberately build on their management capabilities. These capabilities could include among other things, marketing strategies, finance, business systems or governance. Often a lack of business capability is something that is limiting our region’s economic growth. If in general terms there are two parts to a business with one being what your business does and the other being how you do it then the “what you do” part is the business capability. The how you do it part would fall within business excellence models such as those used measure business performance such as the Baldrige criteria. It is about adding value to the customer and it starts with a customers need and finishes with the fulfilment of that need. The business capability aspect is much more interesting and to most of us it is often harder to identify or articulate. It encompasses what a business must know and be able to do so that the organisations goals can be achieved. There is a raft of literature available on the subject and much of it is built around its own language and jargon which can be confusing and overly academic for the average business person. What matters are that good processes and efficient use of resources accompanied by an increased ability and knowledge that leads to a more effective organisation. This in turn means a better chance of that organisation achieving its goals. The good news is that NZTE through its Regional Business Partner Programmes that it has in place throughout New Zealand can help businesses to grow their capability. In Northland this role is undertaken by the Northland Business Grow Team. At no cost to a business they will assess your business and its capability needs and then prepare a development plan for you and provide advice, information and business assistance. Having done this the can then direct you to relevant resources and services to help to help fulfil this need and you grow your business, including providing links, contacts and referrals to other government and private sector business assistance programmes. Finally through government support for this programme in many cases they can partially subsidised training and coaching services may be available and can be accessed through a voucher system. With their support many Northland businesses are now better placed to achieve their strategic objectives through increase capability.