“Regardless of company size, the concerns of executive management are all essentially the same.” - Bryce’s Law

I was recently at a gathering of independent consultants from around the Tampa Bay area and we got around to talking about the concerns of owners of small businesses. From this, we devised a list of pet peeves commanding the attention of small-to-medium sized business owners, to with:

• Employees/Human Resources - staffing and allocations, payroll, benefits, and management.
• Work environment - facilities and equipment, corporate culture.
• Systems - implementing business processes productively, and staying abreast of technological developments for competitive advantage.
• Regulations - complying with rules as established by government and industrial concerns.
• Time Management - scheduling and devoting time to the proper set of priorities.
• Financial Resources - managing and planning cash flow and investments for optimal return on investment.
• General Planning & Strategy - both short term and long term, including an analysis of the market and competition.

At the end of this session, we discovered that the concerns of small business owners are essentially no different than large corporations, except on a much smaller scale. The only difference was that the small business owner has to move faster than his corporate counterparts simply due to the size of his operation. For example, he doesn’t have time to read voluminous business plans and financial statements. Instead, he requires summary reports which get to the point in a couple of pages. He needs good, sound supporting advice to make his life easier.

This got me thinking about the amount of time and money corporate executives invest in managing their company’s affairs. True, some things require considerable time and effort to investigate, such as researching new products/services and checking market conditions, but most of what is done is what I refer to as “meatball” type analysis which should be easy and relatively inexpensive to prepare.

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