Coaching in Commercial Awareness

If you are in the job market or considering changing your job/career you need to be aware that commercial awareness is a sought after skillset.

Commercial awareness is up there with Leadership on the list of sought after skills within businesses and organisations.

This means that businesses hire individuals with a track record of sales beating targets, budgetary control and acting positively on customer feedback. Demonstrating specific examples of where you have done that and presenting this well is key.

This also means that organisations need to ensure that their performance management process includes organisation specific key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets.

Commercial awareness also means developing leaders to retain good people through engagement and development activities, since lower turnover organisations are almost always the most profitable and productive.

If you are thinking that this is only relevant to the private, commercial sector then think again. The need for commercial/business acumen or an eye on the money and profitability, transcends sectors now with every organisation required to achieve and meet financial metrics and KPIs.

Managing talent properly, to this end, is key. as is workforce planning to ensure the right numbers of people with the right skills, right placement and of course role clarity. All of these elements are relevant to the bottom line.

The CIPD [The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development] defines business acumen as "understanding your organisation, the commercial context and the wider world of work....using  commercial mindset and enabling change to create value", a core behaviour on its Profession Map.

So what does business/commercial acumen look like so we can develop it? Contributing to financial success whilst delivering well for customers, through an increasingly digitalised territory, is a good place to start.

This does not mean that you need to talk numbers with the same degree of fluency as the average Chief Financial Officer/Director of Finance but it does mean that all of management need to have commercial awareness. For most organisations the people cost is the largest controllable cost so managing that properly will have a profound effect.

Also from a customer perspective people skills and the effort that you put into customer relationships make the most profound difference to the quality of goods and services people receive.

Think about what levers you can pull to achieve your business/organisation's ambitions. To do this you need to understand the business strategy and model of the organisation. What relevant data is available to you?

Coaching leaders in these areas is a no brainer in that it will improve results in all areas including cost reduction, productivity and profitability.

Think about the areas where value is created in your business. For example the cost benefits of certain technology, best practice people management and financial control. Aim to focus on these areas. Business today is about three key areas - money, people and technology.

If you are interested in using professional coaching to make changes please get in touch at enquiries@westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk or telephoning 01761 237400.