The intent of management should be to accomplish the objectives of the business. It is assumed that those objectives include most of the following:
- achieving exemplary customer satisfaction and patient care
- growing the business
- improving profitability of the business
- establishing business stability for its ownership, employees, and customers
Stability in a business is only achieved when managment has both the people and the systems in place to ensure that surprises are minimized, and that knowledge of key indicators of business health or lack thereof are well-defined and up to date at all times. This is your early warning system that will alert you to potential negative trends that might be occurring. Do you have a reliable early warning system?
A relatively frequent occurrence in veterinary medicine is that a practice seemingly is cruising along without major hiccups in its growth, profitability levels, customer satisfaction, and over-all results. Then, all of a sudden, whether it's the need for updated financials for a bank loan, or some other event that necessitates current financials, the owners get a surprise. Their financial results have cratered, and due to lack of proper monitoring (ie., our simple financial dashboard), profitability has declined and with it the value of the business is significantly hurt as well. This is a frequent occurrence in practices that don't have sufficient and up-to-date early warning systems in place that are designed to provide stability to the owners, employees, and to your clients. Take the steps necessary to put your early warning system in place today.
