BB Chart: A Method to Identify Benefits and Barriers in Business Opportunities
Business leaders are always looking for new opportunities to reduce costs or increase profits. However, these opportunities can only be discussed during strategy meetings, often by doing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (also known as SWOT) analysis. SWOT is a great tool for leaders to see where the business has been, where it is now, and where it could go. However, the SWOT result falls short when some of the identified opportunities may not be taken advantage of immediately. This may be because management feels they need to do more research before proceeding with an opportunity. This follow-up investigation can require a lot of time, effort, money, and possibly result in missed opportunities. Instead, decide if additional research is needed and what opportunities can be implemented immediately by following the SWOT exercise with a quick review of Benefits and Barriers (BB).
To do a BB review, simply make a T chart with each opportunity listed at the top of a separate page. Then put the words “Benefits” on the left side of the T and “Barriers” on the right side. Once the chart template is ready, leaders can begin brainstorming ideas to place on each side of the chart.
- Benefit examples: quick cash in, easy to do, increased profit, already experienced, low cost to implement, matches long term goals/objectives, can use existing equipment, cost savings, strong market for product, easy to sell, fits in with corporate values, improves customer satisfaction, etc.
- barrier examples: expensive to implement, inexperienced, requires training, quality issues, special equipment needed, expensive to implement, takes too long, government restrictions, outside current customer base, legal issues, additional insurance required, needed more space etc
Once the ideas for the chart are exhausted, leaders can easily see where the benefits outweigh the barriers to quickly implement some opportunities. If the barriers are much greater than the benefits, it may not be worth taking advantage of those opportunities at this time. When the benefits and barriers appear the same, further investigation may be warranted to make a decision and determine the potential return on investment. For those opportunities that won’t be implemented immediately and still look promising, leadership can now make a plan to overcome the barriers so the business can realize future benefits.
An alternative method to quickly analyze each opportunity during a strategy meeting is to divide the leadership team into subgroups of three or four people. Each subgroup would be assigned two or three of the most interesting opportunities to make a BB chart in a short period of time. Once the charts are complete, the subgroups would come together in the larger leadership team to vote on which opportunities to pursue, which to investigate further, and which to abandon for now.
The SWOT analysis is a useful tool for business leaders to determine where the business is and where they want it to go. Don’t stop there though, as you can miss out on easy opportunities by trying to do too much research before starting them. Instead, use the BB chart to identify the benefits and barriers of potential opportunities. This charting method allows for rapid execution of those opportunities that will quickly result in immediate business benefits. In addition to identifying which opportunities are worth the additional research time and effort versus those that may not be as advantageous as they appear when presented to business leaders.