1. Offering
How do your products and services differ from those of the competition – to determine this take
into account price, quality, appearance, packaging, size, servicing, operating characteristics, and
business considerations (e.g. business location and facility, reputation, methods of selling, opening
hours, delivery times, credit terms, advertising and promotion, etc? How could your offering
be re branded or differentiated from the competition? What plans are in place to develop, expand,
or improve your offering? Any Plans to outsource/offshore?
2. Operating Capacity
What level of production could be sustained? How would an increase in Production be serviced?
If new productive/operating assets are required, how will these be financed? Any obsolete assets
that need replacement? Are the productive assets being fully utilized? Are premises in conformity
with fire, health, and safety regulations? Are premises sufficient for present needs and could
future growth be supported?
3. Human Resources
Is the management structure in place sufficient? Is there a Succession Plan? Staff Turnover – is
there cause for concern, and if yes how could this be checked? Are there Key Staff, and what
plans are in place if they retire? What backup arrangements are in place in the event of employee
absenteeism? Is employees and public liability Insurance in place?
4. Customers
Who are your customers? What do they do? Why, when, and how do they buy your offering?
What is their financial worth? What makes them feel good about buying your offering? What do
they expect of you and your offering and what is their perception about you and your offering
and about the competition and the competition’s offering? With respect to credit sales, is Debtor
Turnover Increasing, and if so, is this because of increase in sales, deficient monitoring, or maybe
because of Bad Debts? Do you assess a customer’s credit worthiness?
5. Competition
Who are your competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is known about
potential competition? How is the competition monitored to know what it is doing and what it
intends to do? What Plans are in place to thwart off the competition, and possibly win market
share?