The BizGrowth Symposium was held last week and I feel that the Wednesday half-day session was a success for the farmers who attended. NMC-CREES offered three training sessions and Tony Pellegrino shared his Cargo Air Bridge program with the group. Mr. Pellegrino also talked about the progress of the slaughterhouse he has been developing.
I feel the Air Bridge will spur more farm activity by lowering the cost of shipping to Guam. In essence, this could open the doors for farmers to sell all the produce they can grow that meets quality standards. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that with lowered shipping costs, agriculture may emerge as the second most sustainable economic leg that the CNMI has to stand on. It is also an area that we have more control over than other areas of economic development.
I want to thank all the individuals, agencies, and companies that supported the BizGrowth Challenge and showed a desire to improve the economy. Individuals who attended the Thursday symposium received a lot of great information from people who are experts in their field. In the afternoon sessions Geri Willis shared her knowledge on how to find grants and apply for them, Eric Plinske shared bookkeeping methods, Frank Gibson had a lot of information to assess your human resource needs, Janel Villegas presented numerous examples on how to motivate your workforce, and Perry Conner shared his expertise on personal financial management. Ralph Yumul and Greg Calvo were on hand to answer questions about how to start a business and apply for a loan through CDA, and Dave Attao from NMC-COMPASS had some great information to improve your workforce through training.
I asked all of the individuals who attended to complete an assessment of their business in the six strategic dimensions that are part of every business. These dimensions are centered on a seventh area called “customer focus,” which is what every aspect of your business should focus on to continue to grow.
Below are the seven statements that individuals were asked to rate their business/agency. I have reproduced it below so you can assess your organization to see your score. Ask yourself what result or outcome do you most want your organization to realize in the near future as you read each statement? Rate yourself on the following seven questions on scale from 1 to 5 that best describes you level of agreement: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree.
1. You have a customer-focused organization that strives to exceed the needs of the customer.
2. You have a cultural environment that encourages new and better ideas to help grow your business.
3. Your organization profitably creates more customers and then nurtures them to become referral-giving advocates who grow your business.
4. Your company trains and retains skilled staff who are motivated to achieve goals that grow your business.
5. Your business establishes and implements standards and systems to efficiently operate and effectively achieve results that will grow your business.
6. You create and maintain strong working relationships with the key stakeholders who contribute to the growth of your business.
7. Your organization increases revenues, decreases costs, and effectively manages resources to provide greater opportunities to grow your business.
So how does your organization rank in each of the strategic dimensions that affect every business? If you scored 31 or more points, then your company should be doing great. You may be experiencing some slow periods, but you are able to recover quickly. A score between 27 to 30 means your company is doing okay, but you should start to focus on your weaker dimensions to bring the score up. If your score is from 22 to 26 then you should quickly identify your areas of improvement and develop a plan to improve those dimensions that might hinder sustainable growth. A score of 21 or less means you are in dire need to make improvements in most, if not all of your dimensions. You must implement a turnaround strategy before it’s too late.
For the next few weeks, I will take one topic statement and give greater details on how your business can improve in that strategic dimension. This may be something that you want to share with your staff so they can contribute ideas that will help improve in each specific dimension.
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