Business is the crux of any thriving economy. Small, medium, or large-scale businesses, are all important to the flourishing of any economy that wants to thrive. Sectors like oil & gas, agriculture, food business, blogging, real estate, hotel, and transportation amongst others, are some of the many sectors where businesses originate and thrive.
Nigeria is blessed with numerous opportunities to do business with an abundance of natural and human resources, she has an estimated population of 200 million people, Lagos happens to be the business hub of the country with a population of roughly 15.5 million people and those who come in and out for commerce. The list of the type of businesses that exist is endless.
Business growth has many indicators, such as sales and a positive cash flow, a positive workforce environment, effectively meeting a need, customer satisfaction, scalability, etc. The success and growth of a business depend on many factors, factors such as quality personnel, adequate funding, a good business plan, problem-solving, etc.
Problem-solving can be said to be a subset of analysis of business problems (ABP). ABP involves using critical thinking to analyse a problem, solve it, and make adequate decisions. It involves problem analysis and diagnosis while taking into consideration the risk and uncertainty involved in decision-making.
ABP involves identifying the problem, analysing the problem, diagnosing the problem, and defining the problem (this includes what, why, when who, how, and where).
Analysis of business problems involves the following steps:
- Understanding the business/situation dynamics: Understanding the situation, a good approach here is to use the 5Ws and H approach, this helps to get a well-rounded idea of the problem at hand.
- Define the decision problems: There are different techniques used to define the decision problem, some are problem trees and root cause analysis. The problem tree, for instance, helps us understand an existing situation by identifying major problems and their main causal relationships.
- Be guided by objectives: Clarity of objectives is important in effective decision-making. Clear objectives allow for measures that can be used to choose between alternatives.
- Brainstorm on alternatives: There are different ways to solve a problem, brainstorming on alternatives allows us to analyse the various solutions, and eliminate the intangible until we get to the best possible solution for the problem at hand.
- Develop criteria: Developing criteria that the solution must meet is a critical part of problem-solving, these criteria make it easy to walk through the alternatives.
- Evaluate alternatives using the established criteria: Here we merge the two bullet points above. This is a precursor to taking a decision.
- Take a decision: After following the previous steps, you arrive at a decision that matches the problem at hand. One that meets the criteria and fulfills your objective.
- Develop an Action plan: An action plan is a course of action taken to achieve the required solution, it usually entails well-defined steps geared towards an ultimate goal or goals as the case may be.
Analysis of business problems is a powerful tool in the hands of business managers that enables them to tackle problems keenly, almost scientifically, and without bias to arrive at an ironclad solution to whatever problems they face. A tool that will be useful in the hands of the business managers in the great nation, Nigeria.
Having seen its beauty in analysing business problems, I can state for a fact that some of the tools of ABP can be used for personal problems as well.
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