How long can you afford to manage your business as a "one man" show?

One thing we have observed is that business owners in the region face special challenges: an unstructured business environment, ambiguous legislation, unpredictable competition, incomprehensible accounting conventions. The daily responsibilities of satisfying customer demands, motivating and keeping good staff, and making sure that there is sufficient cash in the business, often distract the attention of the owner from longer term reflection: “Do I have the right strategic direction?”; “How do I finance my further growth?”; “Would an external investor in the business make sense?”; “How do I plan for their education, my retirement, and the future of my business?”; ”Who will succeed me -- my children?” To address these issues we offer a “one on one” business owner “coaching” service called “BOSS” – Business Owner Support Service. "BOSS" co-ordinates coaching to the individual with business and strategy consulting as one service.

The owner/manager has to run the company and be the person with the answer to day to day problem while also taking the lead on strategy. This can seem like the loneliest job on the planet and lead to intense frustration.

Osprey offers business owners the chance to step out of their “Superman” costume and to share a whole range of issues in a one on one personal consultancy level. We may be actively involved together with board members or senior management; at other times the occasion may be more discreet or private – all according to whatever works best for the client’s situation.

We start by listening to the owner’s issues and discussing them and sometimes we identify issues not previously identified. The result is a list of issues that we prioritise together with the owner. We then work through these one by one. This “work” can range from clarifying business jargon to analyzing various outcomes of new strategies and to working on personal business plans; in fact the spectrum is as broad as the variety of business owner issues itself! Sometimes the “issues” turn into projects in their own right, such as a benchmarking study, or a business valuation, or a strategic planning exercise. Where we do not have the specialist resources or where an issue is of a purely legal or accounting nature, we work with specialists in the relevant areas.

This special service is not about short term projects... in fact sometimes it can be a sound boarding and decision support exercise for several years. The key to success is that it is a sustained effort that gives the successful entrepreneur supplementary skills, additional research and insights, objective thinking and greater comfort when taking important decisions.