Quarterly Review – Power of Four

The Quarterly Review process known as the ‘Power of Four’ is a process to improve business profitability, revenue growth, and ease of management. Without exception every business can improve these three benchmarks by making a few small changes and doing a few things a little differently. In the majority of cases there is no extra overall work, it is just about being more efficient and effective (focusing on the important things and not wasting time on the rest).

The first part of the process is the quarterly bench-marking against industry benchmarks.

The second part of the process will be developing a one page strategic plan. Each business owner will develop their own personal five year plan of where they want to be in five years’ time, and how they are going to achieve this.

The third part of the process, known as the ‘Power of Four’ is basically a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. There is nothing new with SWOT analysis, but if done properly it is highly effective. This is about identifying 4 strengths, 4 weaknesses, 4 opportunities, and 4 threats to each individual business.

The fourth part of the process is the action plan which details what actions will be taken over the next three months to address the issues identified under the SWOT plan. All individual businesses are at different stages of business development and have different strengths, weaknesses, etc., so the plan is tailored to each businesses specific circumstances. Some businesses will have many weaknesses and they won’t all be improved or eliminated in a three month period – that is fine and realistic. The most important thing is to see the process as one of continual improvement and on-going review.