What’s considered “newsworthy” by the business press is either about trends that have a very broad appeal, or what Hugh McLeod calls business porn. The reason any kind of porn has any appeal at all is that it’s a fantasy. So that kind of business news is obviously irrelevant. As for the trends – they usually don’t apply to a small company. One can make a very successful company flying under the radar, or exploiting niches that have nothing to do with larger trends.
However, there are times when the larger issues do have an impact, but small companies don’t usually take time to consider them. Here is an exercise to solve that problem.
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Financial Impact Grid
From The Star Bulletin by Ralph Perrine,
SOMETIMES I sit with business decision-makers and draw what I call an Impact Grid. In the middle square we put the company. In the next square we put the company’s clients. In another, the client’s customers.
In adjacent squares we put the company’s partners and vendors. We talk about what impacts these squares. It helps business leaders think about the impact of economic factors: employment, interest rates, and so forth.
It also reveals lines of impact for specific scenarios: If client A’s customers are hit with a shock (hurricane, bird flu, rising energy costs), then client A is going to experience a downturn in sales. That in turn will have other implications.Â
