Car Safety Features – Luxury or Necessity?

Automakers are making cars and drivers safer all the time.

What are you doing to make your business safer (while it grows even faster)?

Here are some ideas from my recent test drive of a BMW 750xi. (The “i” stands for ‘I want one.’)

Night vision. An infrared camera helps you see beyond your headlights and see what you can’t see at night. It displays any heat generating image on the screen and flashes a warning image up in your field of vision (‘heads up display’ – see below) if it detects a human on the road. Since it detects heat, it can show any vehicle that is operating based on heat from the engine, interior compartment, wheels or exhaust (you can see moisture drops from an exhaust pipe). It’s useful at night and in heavy rains or blizzards to detect other vehicles or people. This is seriously cool and useful technology!

What are you doing to see what you can’t see in your business? Here are some ideas:

• Shop your own business. Phone the switchboard. Visit your store or shop. Hire a mystery shopper.
• Shop your competition. Same procedure as above.
• Get a fresh set of eyes, such as one of your trusted advisors and peers to look at your entire business. Remember, you can’t trust your subordinates, they want to make you happy, and they’re not going to criticize their fellow co-workers.
• We all have strengths and weaknesses, passions and imperfections. How are your natural biases impacting your business strategy and performance.
• Measure how far you are planning and focusing ahead: is it daily, weekly, monthly or longer. The longer you focus ahead, the safer you will be.
• This is a great management test, as well. Can you take two weeks off at the drop of a hat, or a drop in the temperature?

Heads up display. Critical information is projected in your sight line on your windshield. It includes speed, GPS directions, and warnings for lane departure or pedestrians.

In business, who is giving you the heads up? Are you receiving daily or weekly flash reports to monitor your sales pipeline, sales conversions, cash flow, days to cash ratio, project status, costs vs. standards, capacity, speed and quality?

Does your system automatically generate this informations so that you don’t have to rely on a person who may be reluctant to be shot as the messenger and bearer of bad news.

The luxuries of today quickly become the necessities of tomorrow. And, our overall quality of life improves along the way.

As a business owner and manager, you need critical information so that you can see beyond your normal field of vision and react quickly to pursue opportunities or resolve problems. Look far ahead, use good information that provides objective evidence, make decisions, and then step on the brakes or the gas, it’s up to you.

Copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych