What really defines a successful business?

How do you measure the success of a business? How big its turnover is? How much profit it makes? How long it’s been in business? How many people it employs? How many people have heard of it, perhaps?
It’s probably a combination of all of those things, but the most commonly recognised measures are turnover and profit. Without them, you’re nothing.
But bragging about soaring sales and fat profits isn’t the done thing, certainly not in the wake of the credit crunch, when the four Bs – Banks, Bonuses and Big Business – became dirty words.
Yet without banks and businesses of all shapes and sizes there will be no recovery from the after-effects of the crunch. Hammering banks and business is ultimately self-defeating.
So may be it’s time for business to think again about how it measures success. Turnover and profits remain crucial, but it’s what they support that needs to be emphasised if business is to regain its reputation in the public eye.
So when businesses talk about success, they could characterise it in terms of the contribution they make to the lives of ordinary people – how many jobs they support, both in their own business and at suppliers; how much money they spend locally; how much money they have put into people’s pensions; what they’ve done for the environment, whether its cutting consumption or just tidying their part of town; what they did for a local charity; who they sponsored through college; how the woman who joined as an office junior is now a director.
All of these things follow on from turnover and profit, and it may well become much easier to celebrate those achievements when people have a better understanding of what they bring about.
Large PLCs often produce thumping great corporate social responsibility reports detailing activity many ordinary people might be surprised to hear of. But one of the reasons why they’d be surprised is that these CSR reviews are pitched at shareholders, not the public, and written in the kind of corporate-speak which is almost wilfully impenetrable.
Businesses are here to make money; they are not charities or social enterprises. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a significant beneficial impact on society.
Business owners often get frustrated that their contribution to the world is not appreciated. Now, more than ever, they need to tell the world exactly what their contribution is.