We’ve all heard about the importance of mission statements a thousand times before, but it cannot be stressed enough. You can’t begin evaluating your business until you have a clear understanding of what your business was placed on this earth to do. There’s no point in measuring whether or not you are meeting your goals until you first define what your goals are. When you have a firm grasp of your company’s mission, you can then begin identifying and measuring the various factors that can affect your business’s pursuit of that mission in a positive or negative way. The four fields of influence are the different types of factors which can push you to or away from your mission. They are environmental factors, organizational factors, group or departmental factors and individual factors.

• Environmental factors are those which fall outside your company’s sphere of influence and are usually out of your control. Examples would be government regulations, the economy, politics, etc.

• Organizational factors are just the opposite. They exist within your business and are completely within your control. Customer service, company culture, human resource policies, management structure and pay policies are all good examples.

• Group or departmental factors also exist within the organization but are typically not under the control of the business owner. These involve relationships between departments or divisions or locations.

• Individual factors are just that: factors that depend on the unique personality traits of the individual employees. This includes their personality, work ethic, management style, etc.

Planning for the future, and taking the company where it needs to be to continue to succeed, means looking at a wide range of issues within and from outside, and keeping score to see what your business can do to surpass what it has done before.