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			Before You Start, Know Why Businesses Succeed. A 1988 study of successful, high growth firms sought to identify a common set of factors and strategies that contributed to success. As ranked by the firms themselves, the following factors contributed to the success of their respective ventures: % Factor 96% Product Knowledge 95% Knowledge of the market 93% Knowledge of the industry 88% Flexibility\adaptability\responsiveness to change 82% Adaptability to change 77% Sticking to given mission 71% Devotion\hard work 70% Distinct competitive advantage 65% Sense of commitment to succeed and to the business 65% Aggressive marketing 62% Adequate plan 61% Responsiveness to customers 59% Clear market niche 55% Quality of product\service 55% Personal selling talent 54% State of the art technology 53% Differentiated product\service 49% Discovery of unsatisfied need 39% Adequate financing 38% Good reputation 23% Cost controls 23% Reference to planning horizon 22% Integrity\honesty 16% Special attention to motivation\productivity 11% Good management\employee respect 10% Attract\retain good people 07% Stated overall strategic goal 07% Employee devotion\spirit 01% Formal business plan           Source GE Hills & HP Welch- High Growth Entrepreneurial Ventures: A Content Analysis to Identify Common Strategic Factors This is powerful knowledge. Because this is based on firms' perceptions of why they succeeded, you can use it to assemble what you need to duplicate their success. And note these responses are intuitively practical. Keys are having a working knowledge of your product, market and industry, the ability to make the right decisions in the face of change and the unforeseen, hard work, and having a product or service that stands out in the market. I do not think it prudent to simply disregard the rest, or place less importance on them because these "middle of the pack" factors and even those ranked low are clearly proven concepts and requirements. For example, the formal business plan itself may not contribute much to success but it is a good means of organizing thoughts to present to potential investors and others who need to know. And interestingly, the low ranking adds ammunition to the argument that ideas are a dime a dozen... that execution is everything. I think overall that the usefulness of this ranking is to see what those who've been there think about why they got there. So now that you know....... © 2007 John B Voorpostel CA www.iaccountant.ca
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