The purpose of adopting a quality standards framework is to enable and encourage small businesses to strive for excellence. In some industries, such standards are imposed by government regulations. In fact, the drive for compliance is becoming more and more the norm in an effort to guarantee a minimum level of quality of services to customers.

Effective small business owners and managers engage in best practice activities anyway, and the adopting of standards underpins their business policy development. They take a proactive approach to striving for excellence in their business because they know that by doing so they will achieve highly successful financial results and their key business objectives.

The structure for developing a set of standards within your business requires thinking about the kind of business you are in. The next step is to make a commitment to best practice in the industry sector of which your business is a part.

The following seven areas serve as a guide for aligning and integrating excellence in business:

1. Build leadership and management capacity
2. Develop a strategic business plan
3. Inculcate customer focus throughout your business
4. Deliver products and services that provide value
5. Create a developmental culture
6. Adopt a common decision making framework
7. Measure your business performance

One – Build Leadership And Management Capacity

Implementing this principle ensures that the business owner and managers are committed and dedicated to the purpose and the direction of the business. The leaders of the business show the way, through their own beliefs, attitudes and behavior. They engage in their own leadership skills development as a constant.

The leaders in the business are the ones who must live the mission, vision and values of the business, on a daily basis and at all times in everything that they say and do. They adopt an ‘always learning’ mindset.

Two – Develop A Strategic Business Plan

Effective business owners have a deep and thorough understanding of the nature and direction of their business. To this end, they clearly articulate the vision they have for their business within the framework of the small business plan. Everyone in the business understands the business plan. Everyone knows what their roles, responsibilities and accountabilities are in bringing about the results that have been spelled out for achieving the vision of the business.

Three – Inculcate A Customer Focus Throughout Your Business

Everything that is done within a business is about delivering quality outcomes and results for customers. The effective business owner knows who his or her customers are, where they are located and what their needs are. With this knowledge in hand, they then ensure that their customer needs are met and, indeed, exceeded. Systems, policy development, procedures, processes and measures are all essential in achieving this area of excellence.

Four – Deliver Products And Services That Provide Value

The effective business owner and manager always make sure that their business provides value for money with their product/service range. This means having proper controls in place for quality assurance, from product design and development, production, distribution and customer follow-up and feedback. These control mechanisms are indicative of an ongoing, continuous improvement culture that ensures value for customers on a consistent basis.

Five – Create A Developmental Culture

The successful business owner creates an ethos where continuous learning is the hallmark of pursuing excellence in everything that is done. This is evidenced from the recruitment stage through to exiting. All the employees in a value-based business are employed as being competent and being the ‘best fit’ for the business. They are always developing, both personally and professionally. They all have development plans that are aligned to business objectives and performance outcomes.

Six – Adopt A Common Decision Making Framework

Effective decision-making is critical in achieving excellence. Successful high performing business environments adopt a common language and agreed ways of arriving at best-balanced choices, reaching conclusions, resolving conflict and making hard-edged decisions. Everyone in high performing business cultures knows what these frameworks are and uses the tools consistently to ensure common understanding in the implementation of problem solving/conflict resolution.

Seven – Measure Your Business Performance

Establishing benchmarks and measuring results and performance against agreed objectives and outcomes will insure high performance and excellence in business. Such measures are identified and spelled out in concrete terms in relation to the other six areas listed above.

The last two decades have been host to a technology revolution unparalleled in human history. From Apple IIEs to smart phones, the tech industry has been developing new products and software at a breakneck speed. As a consumer, it is often difficult to keep up with new products and services. With revenue shares dictated by bleeding edge technology development, skilled engineers have quickly become a coveted asset in an ultra-competitive battle of the fittest. Given the pace of industry growth and the rising demand for tech positions, the hiring industry has been forced to evolve to better service the needs of the leading tech firms.

The technology industry covers a broad range of companies providing computer systems, chip production and other information and communication systems. This broad range of offerings requires personnel with specialized skill sets including both hardware and software engineering expertise. Hardware engineering expertise can further be segmented into computer manufacturing, processor manufacturing and mobile device development. The software development side of things also covers a broad range or languages and expertise from web development to mobile device programming skills. The multitude of available programming languages further segments the software side of technology expertise.

With such a diverse demand for skills, hiring for technology firms requires a unique understanding of each new position’s technical foundation. Hiring for technical positions mean the recruiter must differentiate between hardware engineering skills and the variety of programming language skills on the market. This demand for technical recruiting skills has gown alongside the booming tech industry. Given the inherent degree of difficulty with filling such unique roles, many tech firms turn to skilled tech recruiters to help better service their hiring needs. Specialized hiring firms have cropped up to provide the expertise and experience level required to recruit for jobs in the tech space. These firms have honed their expertise and experience over time. While an internal recruiter may not have a grasp on all the different skill sets required for a position, a dedicated technical recruiting firm is likely to have experience with similar roles and recruiters who understand the specific skill requirements for each job.

The competitive nature of hiring for technology firms has forced recruiters to edge out the competition with greater efficiencies. Recruiting efficiencies have been improved over time through greater experience with specialized job requirements, a better understanding of technical skill sets and enhanced organization. Many tech recruiting firms have turned to technology itself to help out compete other firms looking to source candidates for similar roles. Software developers have created unique applicant tracking systems designed solely to increase recruiting collaboration and decrease overall costs per a hire. These software products allow unparalleled insight into the hiring funnel and help ensure the most qualified candidates make it to the interview process.

As technology has outpaced other industries, hiring practices have been forced to evolve and keep pace with cutting-edge technology trends. Developing specialized knowledge about a variety of technical skills and moving to web-based applicant tracking technology has helped modernized technical hiring practices to better service the needs of today’s companies. While these specialized hiring practices can effectively serviced the needs of today’s tech companies, let’s hope they can continue their evolution to better service the needs of tomorrow.