Humera POLY TECHNIC COLLEGE

Improve business practice

Diagnosis is defined as the identification of a disorder, condition, disease or

problem by systematically analysing the history or background, examining the
symptoms and signs, evaluating the test or research results, and then
investigating the probable or assumed causes.
(http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/diagnosis.html)
Business diagnosis works a bit like the medical diagnosis of human beings: it can
be undertaken after symptoms have emerged or as a routine check up to identify
problems before they get out of hand. As in medicine, early detection of
problems helps make “treatment” easier and less expensive.

Business diagnostics can be used for:

1. Checking the effectiveness of strategies and processes. Every organisation

has (or should have) a series of strategies and processes to guide activities. The
only way to evaluate the effectiveness of these is through business diagnostics.
This allows executives to find out what is working and what needs to be tweaked
or removed completely from the system.
2. Understanding your business performance better. Business diagnostics
helps executives and business owners get a better understanding of the
operation and performance of their organisation. Before you can design a more
effective organisation, you have to understand the status of the current one.
3. Identification of weaknesses and strengths. Business diagnostics will identify
both your weaknesses and strengths, and will help you to determine possible
courses of action to follow.
4. Identifying threats. Every business is faced with threats; they can either be
external or internal. Whichever the case, identifying them before they develop
into serious problems is necessary to keep your business performing optimally.
5. Identifying and taking advantage of opportunities. Business diagnosis will
help your business identify new opportunities and the best way to capitalise on
these.
6. Developing business goals. After assessing your current situation, you will be
able to create goals that will help your organisation grow. Goals set after
diagnoses are more achievable as they are formulated with the knowledge of the
prevailing conditions.
7. Identifying skill gaps in your workforce. Business diagnostics can be used to
assess the potential of your employees along with the needs of the business, in
order to help you plan training and career management activities.
8. Identification of individuals’ strengths and weaknesses. Identification of your
workforce’s strengths and weaknesses is important if you wish to create robust
teams that can steer your company to success. From the information gathered
from diagnosis, you can create teams with members who complement each
other.
9. Helping to improve staff motivation. Diagnostics will help you identify what
motivates your employees and how to best improve employee engagement
within your organisation, for optimum performance.
10. Improving employee engagement. Diagnostics gives you a clear idea of
how much your employees are engaged. Employees who are not fully engaged
are less productive and more likely to leave your organisation for “greener
pastures”