What are Your Business Resources?

This is an important question for anyone in business. After looking at all the aspects of where a person or board of directors wants to take a company, i.e. their vision, the next step should be to take a look at what they have to work with. This is something every business can and should do. Some call it the strengths part of a SWOT analysis. Whatever you call it, it is a list of all the things you have at your disposal to get the job done. It includes things like talent, and tools, but one should never forget cash. How much do you have? How much could you get if an opportunity arose? What are some other options you may have for it’s use? This last one is a favorite of economists, because they use the rate of return on other opportunities to help understand something called a discount rate. It is also called your “opportunity cost”. If the money you are using to make more money is creating less than another opportunity could or would then you are destroying wealth, rather than creating it. Pretty simple. Well, not really. It takes a lot of analysis. You’ll want to know everything you can about two separate courses of action so you can compare them. You will have to make a forecast for each, and if there is one thing that is true about a forecast is that it’s wrong. However, the more you know the closer your forecast will be to correct. This is why it is so important to know your resources. What do they cost? What is their source? What would happen if that source suddenly disappeared? Could the tools and talent that I posses be used to satisfy another market? Which competencies (resources) do I have that make me better than my competition? Is there another resource that I don’t have that could increase the strength of the resources I do have? And never forget your greatest resource – your mind. The creativity of the human mind is limitless, so put that resource to work. If you are having trouble coming up with answers or solutions, find someone who can help. The greatest entrepreneurs in history always hired people(resources) who were smarter to help them make the vision a reality.