Jana Krizova Hocken

Recently I delivered a session to a group of small businesses about how to work on the business instead of in the business.

Are you a business owner that has everything in their head? Does your team constantly come to you to ask questions about how something works, what they should do next or where to find something?

There is a lot of hype around Lean at the moment, and while many large companies have been using Lean principles for decades, it’s still quite new for small businesses.

As the year comes to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on what you have achieved as a business this year. Importantly it’s good to think about what you wanted to achieve but didn’t manage and what you can do differently next year.

Did you know that 95 percent of what you do in your business to deliver a product or service is actually considered non-value added, or waste, in the eyes of the customer? If you address this during the production process, it is possible to cut costs. Here’s how.

Big businesses appear to have one huge advantage over smaller guys – they have access to best practice knowledge and tools to help them beat their competition – especially smaller competitors. Think you can’t access these skills and knowledge? Think again.