Strategic Business Owners Winning the Race to Success

This article, ‘Strategic Business Owners Winning the Race to Success’, was originally published in November 2019 and has been reviewed and updated in November 2020 to provide the most relevant information.

Seasoned racegoers will know that the winner seldom leads the race from the starting gun. It is the job of the jockey to think strategically, leveraging their experience and the information around them. They have to gauge the condition of their horse, the relative strength of their competition, and external factors such as the condition of the race track. Your business’ leadership performs a similar role for your company. They must consider all factors, internal and external. With this information, they create a strategy that will get them first past the post.

While the horse and jockey are the most visible in running the race, there is a team of breeders, vets, loriners, groomers, and farriers working behind the scenes to prepare their horse for the race. To maintain a winner, every one of these groups needs to work cohesively so that they can more effectively prepare the horse to run.

In the same way, business accounting software is just one of the components that makes a company productive. A lot of hard work from many people in your team goes into getting all elements to combine and win the race. It takes the combined work from all facets of your business and all members of your teams to find success.

Preparing for Success

As race day gets closer decisions will need to be made that are critical to your chance of success. Much like the Melbourne Cup, a business’ life cycle is a long race. Jumping out to an early lead achieves nothing if your competition passes you at the last corner, and your horse is too tired to finish.

You need to prepare your business to make sure it is ready for the software system you select. Simply implementing a new business accounting system on its own will not win you the race. MYOB Software is not only for small companies, there are options for larger, more complex organisations as well. Your company processes, systems, responsibilities, procedures, and people all work together to win the race, and should be supported by a fully-featured business management system. Read more about the ERP journey you should take to ensure success.

Understanding your competitors

To understand your place in the race, you need to be aware of your business’ strengths and weaknesses, relative to your competition. Building up your strengths allows you to sprint further for longer. While improving your weaknesses can promote reliability and consistency, as well as reducing the chance of your competition having an impact. Business Accounting Software is a tool that can both improve your strengths and reduce your weaknesses.

The first steps in preparing for new business accounting software is the selection of the software itself. Kilimanjaro selected MYOB as their strategic partner in Enterprise solutions. Not only are the solutions localised for the Australia and New Zealand markets, but they are best of the breed.

While choosing the winning horse can be left to luck, with business accounting software you can reduce your risk of selecting the wrong horse by getting advice from the experts.

Strengths and weaknesses

Like your business, each software package has a unique set of functionalities to suit its place in the market. The vendors of the software will know the relative strengths and weaknesses of the software packages they support. As an example, MYOB Exo is extremely strong in inventory-based businesses, job costing and integration. It is suitable for bills of materials, but not for complex manufacturing. MYOB Advanced has its major strength in General Ledger-centric businesses. The preferred method of deployment and cloud-based accessibility is also a consideration. For some businesses Software as a Service (SASS) is essential, while for other businesses this may not be possible.

Make sure you talk to a reputable channel partner who will be upfront with you about the strengths and weaknesses of each of their products.

Horses for Courses

The structure of the software also needs to be understood. If your business requires segregation of responsibilities, you need a software package that has been built to enable this. On the other hand, if your business has not yet reached a stage where this is necessary, you will be much better off with a permission-based structure. MYOB Advanced has been created from the ground up with segregation of responsibilities. Smaller businesses will find this frustrating while larger businesses have this as a basic requirement.

Once you have selected the product, the hard work begins. Most implementers will have a structured implementation methodology. This series of steps will comprise a design phase (or discovery phase), a build phase, a user acceptance testing phase, and a go-live phase. Implementers with a track record of success will follow their methodology to reduce risk and to ensure a successful outcome.

There is no point in entering a horse into a major race unless it is well prepared, ready and has at least an equal chance of winning. Our team at Kilimanjaro will not let you go live with your ERP system until we are confident that you are well prepared. We will be there with you every step of the way.

Considering winning the race to success in your business? See how MYOB’s Enterprise Solutions can grow with you and meet your requirements. Download our free PDF’s from the panel to the right.

Do not leave the future of your business to luck. For any questions, give us a call on 1300 857 464 (AU) or 0800 436 774 (NZ), or send an e-mail to sales@kilimanjaro-consulting.com.