In cut-throat markets small improvements in your business processes can put you ahead of the competition. But it’s important to decide which process are the ones that matter. Once identified you’ll have to develop the disciplines to manage and also sustain these processes.

Department of Business, Innovation and Skills recently published details about their plans for future business support in the UK. For those who haven’t read the details, I’ve summarised the main points below.

Many organisations and their supply chains will have to undergo major changes to meet the low carbon agenda. These changes are governed by the Climate Act which calls for the net UK carbon reduction in 2050 to be at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline.

Payback time has arrived for years of government overspending and in particular the bail out of the banking system. The economy is no different from any household in that it cannot borrow forever; indeed banks often tell their borrowers, in return to the riposte of “well you are earning interest from us”, that they ultimately would like their money back.

A business diagnostic can refer to an activity or a tool used to carry out the activity and of course there are different tools for different jobs. Some diagnostic tools are quick and dirty questionnaires while others are elaborate exercises with scientifically validated outcomes. Diagnostics range from a general business health check through to drilling down into a multitude of specific business areas.

Let me start off with this little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

In Britain work-related transport and workplace activities account for roughly two-thirds of our CO2 emissions. For many businesses a 20% cut in energy would be easy to achieve, and the savings made could equate to as much as a 5% increase in sales. So why do businesses in the UK seem so reluctant to ‘go green’?