Operations Health Score
Twelve questions. Four minutes. A score out of 100 telling you which part of your operations is holding the business back, and how you compare to Australian businesses of a similar size.
No email required to see your result.
What this assessment measures
Most businesses in the 5 to 50 staff range do not have one big problem. They have four ordinary ones, at different levels of severity, quietly working against each other. This assessment scores each of them separately so you can see which one is costing you.
Decision authority. How much of the day to day still needs your sign-off. When approvals flow back to the owner, the business moves at the speed of one person's inbox.
Documentation. Whether the way your business works exists anywhere other than in people's heads. This is the dimension that makes the other three harder when it is weak.
Systems. Whether your technology reduces manual work or quietly adds to it. Tools that are duplicated, disconnected, or ignored create a cost that never appears on an invoice.
Team capability. How concentrated your performance is. If one or two people leaving would create a crisis, the business is carrying more risk than most owners realise.
What a good score looks like
Most Australian businesses with 5 to 50 staff score between 45 and 65. Businesses that can operate reliably for weeks without the owner present usually score above 75.
A score in the middle band is normal and it is not a verdict on how well you run your business. It usually means the business has grown faster than the structure underneath it, which is what happens when the work keeps coming in and nobody has had spare time to document processes.
The number worth paying attention to is the gap between your strongest and weakest dimension. A business scoring 80 on systems and 35 on documentation feels far more chaotic day to day than one scoring 55 across the board, because the strong dimension keeps generating work the weak one cannot absorb.
What happens after you get your score
Nothing automatic. There is no sales call unless you ask for one.
If you want a second opinion on the result, book a 30 minute operations review with Luke or Simone. We will go through your weakest dimension, tell you the first thing we would change, and give you an honest answer on whether you need outside help at all. Plenty of businesses that take this assessment need one focused fortnight of their own attention rather than a consultant.
Common questions
What is a good operations score for a business with 5 to 50 staff?
Most Australian businesses in that range score between 45 and 65 out of 100. Above 75 generally means the business can run reliably without the owner present. Below 45 usually means one or two dimensions are dragging the others down rather than everything being weak at once.
How do I know if my business operations are healthy?
A business with healthy operations can answer yes to most of these. Can your team make routine decisions without you? Do your key processes exist somewhere other than your head? Does your technology reduce manual work rather than add to it? Can a new team member reach a competent standard without constant input from you? If most answers are no, there are structural gaps that will limit growth no matter how hard you work.
What are the most common operational weaknesses in Australian small businesses?
Processes that are not documented, so people cannot complete key tasks without asking the owner. Unclear decision authority, so decisions that could sit with the team still come back to you. Disconnected or duplicated technology. And capability concentrated in a small number of people. These compound each other. Poor documentation makes delegation harder, which increases owner involvement, which removes the capacity needed to fix the documentation.
What should I fix first?
Start with your weakest dimension rather than trying to improve everything. If decision authority is weakest, write a one page guide setting out which decisions your team owns and which get escalated. If documentation is weakest, capture the three to five processes that come back to you most often. If systems are weakest, audit what you pay for against what your team actually opens. If team capability is weakest, cross train so performance is not concentrated in one or two people.
How long does it take to improve business operations?
Meaningful improvement is usually visible within 6 to 12 weeks when the work stays focused on one dimension. Decision authority and documentation move fastest, because improvements there immediately reduce the number of interruptions you get each week. Systems and team capability take longer and compound more strongly over time.
Is this the same as business strategy?
No. Strategy is where you compete and what you offer. Operations is everything required to deliver on that reliably, day after day, without the business breaking down when key people are away. A lot of owners spend time on strategy when the real constraint is operations. The direction is clear enough, and the business cannot execute it consistently because the internal structure was built for a smaller version of the company.
Where to go next
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Business Operations and Reporting
What we do when decision authority and documentation are the constraint
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Business Strategy and Planning
For owners who are clear on the operations and less clear on the direction
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Overseas Hiring and Remote Support
When the honest answer is that you need more capacity, not better process