Analysis of Business Problem – Getting better

Decision making for every organization is key and management always seek to find solutions to every business problem. This course seeks to proffer solutions to business problems from the stage of understanding the problem to the recommendation stage.

The course in LBS is so critical that students don’t joke with it. We have been made to understand that as managers and owners of businesses, the understanding of the course and its application will go a long way to assist in resolving most business problems being faced in our organizations.

We also found out that business problems are to be tackled from an unbiased mindset. You don’t have a predetermined solution in mind while looking at any business problem. Every case handled in the class seem to have its own peculiarity. You approach every case with a clear mindset.

The week of intensive was so helpful for most of us as we were able to ask some important questions from the lecturer and got a lot of clarity with the course. The course though, very technical but it helps to open our thinking minds to looking at business problems from different perspective.

Analysis of business problem is a must have skill for managers and business owners. It allows you see the problem exactly the way it should be seen, and then deciding the objective of your analysis having understood and identified the problem. The objective of the problem is aimed at identifying what success looks like. The next step is to generate alternatives. What are the ways or options to analyzing the case? Then you decide your criteria to be used in analyzing the case. The next step is analyzing the alternatives against the criteria then make a choice based on the evidences you have from the analysis.

We’ve seen many examples where businesses have jumped straight into solution mode without any success. It boils down to one key consideration: If you can’t explain what the problem is, you can’t begin to solve it. Let us take a practical example: Sales figures are unusually low. Some questions you may want to kick off with include: How long has this been a problem? How was the problem identified? Who are the key players? And what are the downstream impacts?

You’ve probably heard the saying: “treat the problem, not the symptom”. Doctors like to use that line a lot, but it’s actually very solid advice. Once you’ve identified the problem and you understand its symptoms, take a few steps back to identify the root cause

Don’t settle for the first solution that’s identified. The more solutions you consider, the better your chances of finding the right fit. We believe that business solutions must always consider the people, process and technology aspects of solving the problem. It is seldom that technology alone can solve a business problem. Brainstorming is a powerful technique for generating ideas as it provides a platform for our group to apply their specific skills and knowledge to the problem.

The group idea thing in LBS is awesome, as it affords us the opportunity to understand the dynamics of group work, knowledge sharing, patience, listening to others and ability to come up with a well meaningful and robust ideas and decisions.

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