To paraphrase the famous US election slogan "It's about the economy, stupid.", research (1,2) has yet again shown that the most important factor in business performance is the quality of management. Not how much the company spends on technology. Not how much digital marketing they do. Not even how much is spent on R&D. Just how well the business is managed. Really simple, doable stuff.  A clear purpose.  A usable orgchart.  Useful job descriptions.  Repeatable written processes.  Measurement and regular review. None of these are difficult to do, although implementation does take time, determinationa and resilience on the part of the owner and there are some basic techniques to learn. If you would like to learn how to apply better management techniques to your business then take a look at this website . 1) What Drives Differences in Management Practices? Nicholas A. BloomErik BrynjolfssonLucia FosterRon JarminMegha PatnaikItay Saporta-EkstenJohn Van Reenen, A...

Sometimes business owners decry “the politics” they see as being inherent in bigger businesses. The implication is clear: smaller businesses are free of that kind of skullduggery and self-seeking. The fact is that many business owners get stuck because they don’t understand that, past a certain size, they need to include political thinking in their growth plans. Most owner-managed businesses get stuck once they have grown to between 5 and 25 employees. They reach the limit of what the owner can manage on his or her own. There are only so many employees, customers, sales and transactions that one person can deal with. You could hink of it as reaching your plate-spinning capacity. Unfortunately, most businesses (over 99.5% according to the ONS) get stuck like this – even when the market opportunity for more growth is there. They reach this revenue ceiling and there they stay. It doesn’t matter what the owner does, how many hours they work, what fancy marketing they invest in. They have g...