Consider your core. It is the one skill, process or advantage you have over your competition. Then think of all the things you do to surround that core with people and assets that complete the company and allow you to release your product or perform your service.
Now consider how many of those surrounding assets and services are really necessary for you to perform in order to protect and grow your core. For most small and medium-sized businesses, there are lots of wheels spinning around the core that take up the attention and resources of management, but add little or no value to the core of the business.
These are new times, enhanced by our global ability to find resources anywhere on earth to complement the core of our business. And most often, the companies supplying those services are much more efficient at doing so than we could be because of their experience and advantages of scale, and the cost to us of such services is lower than performing them ourselves.
So – what is your core offering? Are you building it more slowly because your resources and attention are focused around many processes not critical to that core?
