F.O.C.U.S. Resources - Solutions in Action™
The Business of Business, Technology, and Innovation™

F.O.C.U.S.™ Resources is a strategic business consulting firm that has commercialization as its middle name.  You know your product, technology, or service.  We know business.

Focus is our strategy and our purpose.  We work with new, early stage and established businesses on ensuring that the business operations – processes, activities, and infrastructure – are appropriate and adequate to support the financial performance and strategic objectives of our clients.

F.O.C.U.S.™ begins with…

Finance.  Everything a business does and doesn’t do is reflected in the financial performance – the bottom-line.  It isn’t enough to grow revenues.  You must also be able to grow profits and generate cash.  How you generate financial results is a measure of your…

Operations.  How well you are able to manage the process of doing business:
• create and develop your product (products, services, and technology)
• identify prospects and convert them to customers
• deliver the product on-time, on-budget, and functional
• generate revenues
• grow the business and the bottom-line.
All the activities in your business are targeted toward one objective – making money through…

Commercialization.  The ability of a business to provide an answer to a problem, address a need, or provide an improved way of living is one part of the equation of success.  Providing that “answer” at a profit is how that success is measured.  It isn’t enough to create or know the answer.  You have to get someone to buy it!  Why do they buy? Because you have convinced them that you do have the answer AND because they know you are capable of delivering.  Technology isn’t enough.  A solid business model, knowledge of how to do business, and solid financial basis means the risk of doing business with you and using your answer is acceptable.  Your “customer” is not only the people buying what you are selling. Your customers include those who can potentially invest in your business – vendors, equity shareholders, and debt holders.  You have to ensure that they know that you maximize the return on investment.  They are concerned about…

Utilization.  How you use your resources – money and time – determines what you are able to achieve.  If you lose FOCUS in your business by:

• trying to do too many things at once
• lacking clarity in who your customers are
• failing to set and meet milestones
• putting together the wrong team
• managing resources poorly

Then the business will not succeed.  Time is money.  Money is time.  People are time.  People cost money.  Processes take time.  Processes cost money.  Burning through your capital (cash from all sources – operations and investors) without achieving your milestones means that your business is probably doing business without a…

Strategy.  What is your objective?  Want to make a lot of money and run the business?  Or do you want to grow a business that “goes public”, is an acquisition target, or????  What is your long term business objective?  Where do you want to be in 5 years and beyond?  You have the vision, the destination.  You know where you are starting.  Do you have the road map to get from today to that vision?  What will take?  Time? Money? People? What are the milestones?  How are you going to get there?  Your strategy gets you from where you are today to the company you want to be.

So do you have F.O.C.U.S.™ in your business?  Do you have a strategic objective and a plan to get there?  Do you know how to do business?  We do and work with you to develop your business and your business skills. At all stages of business, F.O.C.U.S. Resources works with you to build your ability to do business.

Listen to an Audio Clip on Competitiveness

Financial results - whether measured in profits, cash flow, working capital, return on investment, or EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) - require a successful, executable business model.

The best technology, product, or service does not guarantee financial results or success.  Financial success is a function of the ability to align the:

• Vision
• Strategy, and
• Structure

of your business.  Financial data and information is the scorecard that quantifies the results of your day-to-day and long term activities.

Are you where you want and need to be?

Three Keys to Business Success

Imagine that success is like gaining entrance to a vault of riches with three locks to open.  Now these locks aren't like the usual padlocks, door locks, or other real life, tangible mechanisms opened with traditional keys (or brute force).  These locks are more like those portrayed in the science fiction adventures.  You know the ones that require solving a riddle, navigating narrow ledges with chasms and torments all around, and then finding the combination of symbols on tiles or buttons to maneuver.  Solve the puzzle, make the right moves, and Voila!  You are there!  The treasure is yours.  Of course, on the way out you have the challenge of keeping it away from bandits and opportunists (and the part they never show the tax man), but that is the subject of another story.

The search for riches in business includes these three keys to success:

• A clear vision of the goal and a passion for pursuing it
• A strategy for achieving the goal (including how you will fund the adventure)
• A qualified and capable team (organization) committed to the goal and willing to help execute and carry the load

To be able to use the keys, there are other elements which cannot be overlooked.  These elements can make or break the success adventure and include:

• the knowledge base used to develop the vision (experience and expertise)
• the ability to adapt in dynamic situations and continue to keep your eye on the goal
• the integrity of the belief system of the team (priorities and decisions get set and made in the belief system)
• the acceptance of risk and the "quotient" the team has, individually and collectively, which impacts the assessment of strategies, alternative paths, and tactics
• the synergy of the team - complementary and competing skills, abilities, experiences, and perspectives

Fortunately physical death of team members doesn't lie in wait around every corner when pursuing organizational success.  Death of the organization is always a possibility, however, if certain things don't happen or other things do happen.

Of the three keys to success, vision is often simultaneously the easiest and hardest to unlock.  Vision requires more than a generic statement.  It mandates precise definition of what needs to be achieved and includes quantification of objectives and timelines for achievement.

As you formulate your vision, you will undoubtedly begin to wonder "How" you reach it.  This is where you must develop the awareness of the other two keys - strategy and team - and the role they play in pursuing the dream.

Strategy is about identifying and understanding the alternate paths to reaching your objective.  It is very much like looking down at that map leading to the treasure and finding the optimal route (not necessarily the shortest or most direct).  It is about finding ways to address obstacles and reach, recover, and retain the treasure at the end of the adventure.

Is your business engaged in a strategic adventure?  Does it have a treasure map?  Or are you stumbling through the jungle, hacking your way through the vines and undergrowth, looking for a trail to follow or a sign to point the way?

Make FOCUS Resources part of your strategic adventure:

• Draw the map (Develop a business plan)
• Seek treasure (Get investors and operating revenues)
• Build your team (Add FOCUS to your team)
• Forge new trails and adventures (Grow your business)

From Finance to Strategy...

to Bottom-line Results!