If you are interested in profitable growth, start by focusing your eagle eye on making an honest assessment of your business. You must know where you stand to develop a successful path forward. Whether you want to grow, increase profit, accelerate working capital or create superior relationships with your customers, knowing where you stand is a good place to start. Since supply chains are evolving at a rapid pace and customer requirements are increasing, start your journey with a supply chain assessment. Take our complimentary LMA assessment to take stock of your current state and what’s needed to optimize your supply chain. 
In addition, focus your organization on taking stock of your position and preparedness of achieving your goals. When assessing your organization, remember to include the following:

#1) Take a cross-functional view – Only assessments which cross functional lines will provide significant value as no function works alone.

#2) Look for connections – It is where the various functions, systems, processes, and people cross that is essential. Focus on these areas.

#3) Focus only on those areas impacting the critical objectives – Too many assessments take forever and end up in binders covered in dust on your desk. Throw that thinking out and go for the practical – what really matters to your organization?

#4) Consider priorities – How are you determining which items are most important? Take a step back and think about whether it is 1) urgent. 2) significant in impact 3) getting better, worse or staying the same on a daily basis

#5) Keep best practices & fundamentals in mind – An easy way to rapidly size-up where to focus is to think about the current state vs. fundamentals for the type of business vs. best practices. When all is said and done, where do you come out?

#6) Capabilities – the best plans are useless if the team is incapable of understanding the plan or how to execute it. Incorporate your capabilities and provide recommendations to fill gaps.

© Lisa Anderson