The seven areas of business management are:
Production: This can be broken down into three areas: supplies, production, and delivery. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
Are the supplies arriving to the facility on time? If not, are there other vendors you can approach in regards to the raw materials needed?
What are production costs like? Is there any way you can reduce them to increase your bottom line?
How much of the time are all your machines up and running? How much of the time are you producing defective products?
How much are the orders delivered on time? Are you receiving customer complaints? How many returns are you getting?
Marketing: This is a very important aspect of any business, because it is essential to get the word out about your products to generate sales. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
How much money is being spent on advertising?
How much sales are being generated from new customers?
Is this enough to justify the amount of advertising?
Finance: Finance is an important aspect of business because it takes money to make money. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
Are personal finances and business finances separate? The answer here should always be yes.
Is there enough capital to pay all business debts?
Are customers paying their debts to you?
Are you able to pay suppliers and vendors on time?
Is the amount of money people are paying to you, growing?
Are business expenses growing faster than sales?
Is the profit margin expanding?
Accounting: Accounting is an important aspect of business because in order to properly manage money, you need to be able to see where and how much money is going out, against where and how much money is coming in. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
Are you keeping records well enough to ensure taxes are paid correctly? This saves a lot of time and hassle in the end.
Are the records updated regularly?
Are you using either financial software or accountants to take care of these tasks?
Human Resources: Human resource is a major aspect of businesses running smoothly if employees or contractors are involved. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
What percentage of employees are productive?
What is the turnover ratio of your business like? How many employees are getting hired and then quitting?
Are the employees happy?
If necessary, did the employees sign non-disclosure agreements?
Do you have a good relationship with the people working for you?
Do the workers have a good relationship with each other?
Management Information System: This is an important business aspect to ensure all proprietary information is kept secure. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
Does anyone else know your trade secret?
Are files and other important information properly protected?
Is there any bad news traveling around that you've heard about?
Do you have back-ups in place should anything happen to the information you need to run the business?
Product Research and Development: This is important to ensure you are meeting the needs of your customers so you can get new business in addition to keeping repeat business. Without knowing your customers, you're not going to succeed. To gauge how well this aspect of business is running, ask and answer these questions.
Do you know the customers who are buying your products and services?
Why are they coming to you instead of going to the competitor?
Do you know your competitors? What makes you different from them?
What steps are being taken to improve your products?
Do the products effectively meet the needs of consumers?
How much money are you spending on research and development? Is it enough?
Are you properly considering property protection through copyright, trademark, and patent?
Effectively managing a business impacts the net profit the business receives, and in many cases, this can be what makes or breaks the business. Taking time to make sure the business is running smoothly in all seven areas is important to early detection of problems.
