New Straits Times (Jan 11, 08:36 PM)  AS a consultant, I am constantly bombarded by a common message out there, both in the public and private sectors. In government departments and agencies, the common message is the emphasis for these units to become self-sufficient and financially independent. Suddenly heads of units are under pressure to practice self-funding and this requires them to generate revenue from projects, products or services enough to cover their operating costs.

In the private sector, the emphasis on business is become keener as shareholders want the various heads of units to justify the dollars invested. The common message is that if a particular business is not providing the required rate of return, it should either be closed down or sold.

The argument being rather than investing the money in non- profitable or less profitable venture, the money can be invested in more profitable business to generate a higher rate of return. In short, back to basics: the idea of business is to sell a product or provide a service, and generate attractive returns. It is never about just busy selling or providing a service for the sake of keeping busy. More aptly put: real good business is not about "busyness", it is about the business generating attractive returns from the invested dollars.

Yet often in a hurried pace of digital age, many managers forget this simple basic. They run around from one meeting to another. They involve themselves in administrative stuff and avoid customers. They talk about ideas without implementing them. They do research and development (R&D) without bringing a single new product or service into the market.

They spent money without justifying their returns. They are involved in a convoluted and bureaucratic decision-making process which slows down customer service. Arguably, government departments and agencies have to balance between the role of meeting social responsibilities as well as running their organisation as a business with the desired returns.

There certainly are differences between the public sector and private sector. However, I believe there are some common threads that both the government departments or agencies (those with specific targeted returns) and the private sector companies have in terms of developing a more business-oriented mindset.

I would like to recommend seven strategies for these organisations to become more business-oriented in their approach.

Inculcate competitive spirit to win. Nothing drives a sportsman or sportswoman more than a strong competitive spirit to win. A culture that encourages winning will drive people to win. That means recognising true winners. True winners are people who achieve their targets, meet their deadlines, excel in their work and produce positive results.

I have deliberately used the word, "true winners" because there are winners in the corporate who bag awards, bonuses, perks, promotions and salary increases by playing company politics rather than actually working and performing.

If you were a golf fan and if you were to watch Tiger Woods play his game and won, you would have no doubt that it is clearly excellent performance that win the day. No amount of talking, charm or personal politics will ever help him win a golf tournament. In sports, the competitive spirit is strong because the rules of winning are clear and the winners are judged professionally and fairly. The rewards are directly contingent upon the performance of the sportsperson.

Likewise, to inculcate a strong competitive spirit in the workplace, we need to have very clear rules of winning and fair assessment of the performers as well as justifiable rewards. Developing the business- oriented mindset must begin by inculcating a strong competitive spirit to win among the employees.

Understanding customers' needs. There is one sure way of increasing your business. That is by continuously increasing your understanding of your customers' changing needs and coming up with ways to meet those needs fast. To understand customers' changing needs requires a systematic way of keeping tabs of your customers.

Talking to customers directly and logging their complaints, suggestions or ideas are good ways to understand their thinking better. For companies with huge customer base, an effective way to be in touch with the voice of customers is to undertake periodic customer satisfaction survey of a representative sample.

Of course, a discerning understanding of customers' needs can only be meaningful if appropriate actions are taken to address customer problems. What is most irritating to customers is the habit of asking customers what problems they face and religiously recording them without doing anything about them. Understanding customers' needs must go beyond listening and recording their complaints, it must include not only problem resolution but also strategies for preventing similar problems in the future.

Understanding company products. One cannot have a business- oriented mindset if one does not know the company's products and services. The more one knows about the uniqueness of one's products and services, the more business-oriented one can become. It is only by knowing the special features of one's products or services, can one know the competitive advantages.

With a clear understanding of the competitive advantages of one's products or services, a staff can then sell or market them more effectively. As a consultant, I have this habit of asking my clients what they think are the competitive advantages of their company's products or services. Up to 85 per cent of them do not know what they are.

It is time corporate leaders emphasise the need for their staff to achieve a superior understanding of their company products and services. It is the role of every to staff to sell, market or promote the company's products or services directly or indirectly at every opportunity available. And let no one say that the role of "selling" is only for the salesman.

Develop awareness of changes. In this digital era where information is available at the touch of a button, there is no excuse for employees not to keep up with changes in the business environment. Organisations should enable people to access to relevant company and industry information through the full utilisation of information technology system.

In this respect, appropriate policy on dissemination and sharing of information is critical. Information is only useful if it is accessible by people. It must also be relevant, accurate and timely.

In this respect, it is useful for a company to develop a market intelligence system to gauge the changes in the marketplace. Thus information about new products or services introduced in the marketplace is important. Likewise information on pricing and promotion strategies of competitors will also be useful. Not to be missed out are information on industry changes such as regulations and their impact on business.

A constant monitoring of the changes in the business environment and providing feedback to relevant staff will be an effective way to develop a keen awareness of what's happening in the industry and enable the appropriate response to them.

Speedy response to changes. While speedy information is useful, it will only be fruitful if the decision-making processes to allow action to be taken are equally fast. Thus, leaders in organisations must find ways to break down the bureaucratic barriers to allow people to act quickly to address customer problems and other operational issues.

The organisation structure should be flattened to allow management to be closer to customers. This will enable not only faster information flow upward but also quicker communication of decisions downward to the staff below.

To become more business-oriented, speedy actions are required in addressing pricing issues, terms of offer and other customers' requests. To do this, existing processes need to be redesigned to become more customer-focussed rather than internal-oriented.

As a consultant, I have observed that many organisations design processes that are more to their convenience rather than that of customers'. The key to winning in the marketplace today is not about meeting customers' needs. It is about responding to their needs faster than the competitors.

Bottom line performance. For a person to stay healthy, one has to keep a constant watch on one's well being. Likewise for an organisation to be financially sound, it has to consistently watch its bottom line performance.

The reason financial soundness is important is because if a company faces a financial crisis, for example a cashflow problem, it may become insolvent over time and everything will come to a halt. The company might end up bankrupt. This is not to say that other areas are of lesser importance.

Of course people, processes and technology are also important. However, let no one forget that people, process and technology can only continue to be employed and deployed in the organisation as along as there is money to fund them.

Watching bottom line performance means looking at various ways to improve profitability. This may mean increasing productivity of staff, deploying a more effective investment strategy, improving cashflow management and more effective cost control.

A sense of urgency. A good business is not good enough if it is not improving. Customers have increasing expectations with regard to quality of products and service levels. The only way to increase market share is to be relentless in improving every aspect of the business. Thus a company must find ways to improve its quality of products, its terms of offer, its delivery process, its customer service, its information and communications technology, its cost effectiveness, the knowledge and skills of its workforce, its image and every aspect of the business that counts.

Of course, every company will try to improve its business in one way or another.

The difference between a company which captures more market share versus the one that loses market share lies in the speed it goes about improving its business. And this speed is contingent on the ability of leaders to create a sense of urgency for people to take the appropriate actions quickly to bring about positive and productive improvements.

The writer is chief executive officer of KL Strategic Change Consulting Group specialising in change management consulting and training. He holds an MBA degree from the Ohio State University. His latest book is on Changing Your Corporate Culture. For consulting work and customised in- house training, contact Jane at Tel: 03- 90741129 or 012-2685212. E-mail: janebee@klscc.com or visit www.klscc.com.