Selecting a Business Adviser

Traditionally business advice to SMEs has been provided by accountants, lawyers and bankers and in comparison to larger organisations the owners of small to medium businesses have had limited access to the full range of business support services they required. This has been acknowledged as one of the contributing factors to the historically high failure rate of SMEs. 

In recent times there has been significant growth in the number of organisations, voluntary schemes and professionals providing advice to the SME market in the form of consulting, advising, coaching and mentoring. A number of these organisations are franchised coaching companies that provide and utilise a particular system or approach when working with their clients and many have a strong focus on sales and marketing as the basis for business growth and success.  Many others are small individual businesses operating in isolation with limited access to resources and providing a very narrow range of services.

However the needs of a business and the business owner are varied - being much more usually than simply sales and marketing - and therefore the advisers they select must be able to provide a range of services and not be limited or constrained by a “one size fits all” approach to business advice.

It is therefore important for the New Zealand economy that SMEs have access to quality business advisers that have a broad base of skills and knowledge across all business functions and access to experts within their organisation to support the growth and development of a business.

At present there are no national standards or regulations that govern the services provided by business advisers and therefore a business owner must identify their particular needs and then find the organisation that will meet it. In selecting a business adviser the owner of a SME must have regard to the following;

·        The range of services provided by the organisation

·        The skills, abilities and experience of the business advisers

·        The professional standards and code of ethics of the organisation and how these are administered and enforced for the benefit of the business owner

To find out more about selecting a business adviser - click here - (the 5 things you need to know when selecting a business advisor) link to download