Business analysis is commonly defined as identifying business needs and finding solutions to those problems.
With this in mind, business analytic tools are strategic tools, techniques, or pieces of software that can aid business analysis, helping businesses find solutions more effectively and efficiently and ensuring the best results.
In bigger corporations, a ‘Business Analyst’ will be the key person performing data analysis using these tools. However, in small—to medium-sized businesses, where this resource may be unavailable, the business owner and/or their leadership team often have this responsibility.
The following article details the best tools for business analysis. It is written specifically for business owners and leaders.
We have selected the top five tools we feel are the most manageable for business owners to use successfully without the need for business analysis certifications.
As a result, you could see increased productivity, profitability, improvement in your business decisions, and business growth.
These business tools and techniques are:
A SWOT analysis allows business leaders to understand their business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It allows you to avoid ‘flying blind’ with your business process and helps you to focus on the right areas at the right time.
You may have done a SWOT analysis before, but there is a secret to making it as effective as possible.
Many people conduct a SWOT analysis by bullet pointing or listing their business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Yet this approach often leaves business owners with a very high-level view of their business without any actionable insights to take away.
How can a SWOT analysis be an effective tool that leads to effective business growth strategies?
As part of our business builder’s blueprint software tools, we at TAB use a much more detailed SWOT Analysis approach. It fits in with our overall planning process; the personal vision statement shows an owner where they want to be, and the SWOT gives them a snapshot of where the business is currently – then the strategic plan we create bridges the gap.
Our approach is based on how happy a business owner feels with each area of their business. We ask them to rate this from 1 to 10 so they can create an overall insightful picture of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
All these things are measured on an interactive balance wheel, as shown below.
As a result, they will see what their own priorities should be going forward.
Another tool to consider is ‘More, Better, Different, Less.’
According to ayoa.com, “The More, Better, Different, Less method is an easy-to-use framework that encourages you to question your processes and what you could be doing to improve these.”
This tool is a fantastic way for business owners to regularly review and improve business details to ensure continuous growth.
It includes four main questions, which should always be completed with your business goals in mind.
The questions are:
• More: what is working for you?
• Better: what can you improve upon?
• Different: what do you need to change?
• Less: what is draining you or taking up too much time?
This analysis tool is very versatile, and we recommend that you and your team ask these questions in all areas of your business.
For example, you could answer these questions while focusing on your staff retention and recruitment goals. It might be that under the ‘better’ question, you realise you need a better understanding of your staff’s needs, which could lead to an employee survey strategy.
Another common and highly beneficial business analysis tool is a PESTLE analysis.
The CIPD provide a fantastic overview of a PESTLE analysis, including a step-by-step guide.
While the More, Better, Different, Less approach focuses primarily on internal factors, a PESTLE analysis will shine a light on the external factors that could influence your business. These fall into the following categories:
• Political
• Economic
• Social
• Technology
• Legal
• Environmental
By analysing external factors in these categories, you will be able to identify any long-term trends that could influence your business.
A PESTLE can be used in a variety of planning contexts, including strategic business planning, marketing planning and organisational changes. With that in mind, it's a very helpful management tool too.
A key area of business you must analyse regularly is both your customer and employee satisfaction.
If you understand how content your customers are, you can not only have confidence in how customer loyalty will contribute to your success but also act on where you need to improve. This is where a customer satisfaction survey comes in.
Similarly, to develop an effective company culture and maintain staff retention, you need to find a way to effectively understand your employees’ satisfaction levels.
You can analyse the results in both scenarios to gain greater insights into the subject matter. For a more detailed approach to this business analysis tool, Functionalba gives a good overview of surveys and questionnaires in business analysis.
We can also recommend tools such as SurveyMonkey and Microsoft Forms for easy, affordable ways to gather feedback.
Probably the most important way to analyse your business is to start with you as the business owner.
Therefore, we recommend developing your personal vision statement and working on a thorough and well-communicated company vision.
Let’s take each of these in turn.
At TAB, we work hard to help people develop their personal vision, which we believe should drive their business vision.
Ultimately, this is your motivator and will define where and when you want to get to.
It helps to write down your personal vision, perhaps in a Microsoft Word document, and save it on your computer.
By looking at your vision regularly, you can analyse whether your business is on track to deliver what you want from life.
Here are a few examples of a personal vision:
A company vision describes an organisation’s mission and aims for what the company will be like in the future. The vision includes key areas such as the purpose of the business, the company’s leadership position in the industry, the company’s market share compared to that of competitors, the culture of the business and much more.
Articulating your vision is important for many reasons:
Additionally, If you’re looking for guidance on how to better align your personal and company visions, don’t hesitate to contact your local TAB coach.
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By combining these business analysis methodologies, you will better understand where your business is, where you want it to be, and how to get there.
The Alternative Board offers practical advice and support from experienced facilitators and peer boards, so feel free to get in touch.