Task 4— Improving the business
Over the last few months business for CCF & MB has been very good with a number of new clients coming on board as a result of implementing your business growth and marketing plans. However, neither you or the business owners are satisfied with maintaining the status quo; as you and they are committed to a program of continuous improvement.
You all feel that CCF & MB’s competitive advantage needs to be strengthened and a SWOT should be undertaken to establish CCF & MB’s strengths and weaknesses including benchmarking the business against the industry. You now decide that you will carry out a diagnosis of the business including a SWOT analysis and a benchmarking exercise to improve CCF &MB’s competitive advantage and its business. You are to produce a document covering your diagnosis, which will be distributed amongst CCF & MB’s key personnel.
As a minimum, your document should cover the following:
1. The data you have used as part of your diagnosis to identify CCF & MB’s competitive advantage.
2. A SWOT analysis to identify CCF & MB’s strengths and weaknesses, its threats and opportunities.
3. How you identified and sourced relevant benchmarking data.
4. How you selected the key indicators (and who you consulted with) for your benchmarking exercise.
5. A consolidated list of the areas for improvement you have identified with a cost-benefit ratio established for each of them.
6. Recommendations on the changes that may be required that will affect existing workflows or
CCF & MB’s organisational structure
7. A high-level action plan that will implement and monitor the recommended changes to be made.
In addition to the material on your Part 2 learning guides, the following link gives you access to a
step-by-step guide to benchmarking and determining competitive advantage:
