Latest News

PI Consulting News

Business resilience and performance: Free Health Check helps SMEs protect against economic downturn

Posted: 18 Jun 2008

A free online tool has been launched today (16 June 2008) to help small and medium sized businesses check their resilience to economic downturn.

The Self Assessment Business Diagnostic has been developed by business consulting and advisory firm PI Consulting.

It’s a five minute online questionnaire which examines how a company is performing in five key areas of business, then awards a percentage score.

Any business with a low score is poorly prepared, and, according to PI Consulting, at high risk of not making it through any serious economic downturn.

You can use the diagnostic free at http://www.piconsulting.org.uk.

PI Consulting has offices in London, Cambridge and Nottingham, and helps clients drive growth and improve profitability.

Its managing director Vincent Bryant said: “Economic downturn is a serious threat to businesses. But there is a huge opportunity for businesses to take a forward thinking approach to identify weaknesses and and take steps to fix them, just in case things get any tougher.

“PI Consulting has developed this Self Assessment Business Diagnostic for business leaders to challenge strength in 5 key business areas, highlight hidden problems and prioritise the areas they must develop to improve profitability and ROI and avoid setbacks.”

By analysing responses to a series of questions, the diagnostic examines five key areas:

• Strategy and direction
• Financial controls and use of management information
• Strength of customers and markets
• Operations and supply chain
• Employee engagement and motivation

The tool is completely confidential, although businesses can opt to send additional data for anonymous analysis and reporting.

Vincent added: “During testing of the tool we found that even businesses that score highly in the diagnostic discover weak areas within their operations they weren’t aware of. This kind of specific information is invaluable to improving performance, avoiding setbacks and maintaining a competitive edge.”

ENDS

Back to News