Applying Business Triage to Make More of Less

The following question was submitted via: ask@mauricearamirez.com

Our facility now finds itself with only a small meeting room left functional after a recent disaster event. It will be several months to a year before our main meeting and banquet facilities are available for bookings. How can we maximize our business potential during this recovery?

Applying Business Triage, Customer Triage and Marketing Triage principles, you can identify and concentrate on those who most need your services and space.

As you recall the first step in each of these triage techniques is to identify and categorize your desired outcomes based:

- Critical/Essential Outcomes – Those that must occur to meet the overall financial or service mission

- Urgent/Important Outcomes – Those that facilitate the overall financial or service mission, but are not essential to that mission.

- Supportive/Optional Outcomes – Those that facilitate the overall financial or service mission, but are ancillary and thus not necessary to the mission.

Once the outcomes are classified into these categories, you must identify the processes that result in the desired outcomes.

Once the processes are identified, they too must be categorized:

- Critical/Essential Processes – Those that must be supported to meet the desired outcome

- Urgent/Important Processes – Those that facilitate the desired outcome, but are not essential to meeting the desired outcome.

- Supportive/Optional Processes – Those that facilitate the desired outcome, but are ancillary and thus not necessary to meeting the desired mission.

Next the resources needed for each process are identified and categorized:

- Critical/Essential Resources – Those essential to the process and without which the process will fail

- Urgent/Important Resources – Those that facilitate the process, but are not essential to the process.

- Supportive/Optional Resources – Those that facilitate the process, but are ancillary to the process and the absence of the resource will not affect the efficiency of the process.

Graphically:

Critical/Essential Outcomes
Critical/Essential Processes	Urgent/Important Processes	Supportive/Optional Processes
Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources

Urgent/Important Outcomes
Critical/Essential Processes	Urgent/Important Processes	Supportive/Optional Processes
Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources

Supportive/Optional Outcomes
Critical/Essential Processes	Urgent/Important Processes	Supportive/Optional Processes
Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources

Essential/Critical Outcomes are fully supported first with all available resources, then Urgent/Important and finally Supportive/Optional.

When applied to customer triage and marketing, the objective is to identify and categorize the market based on the best fit to the outcomes/services you triaged above. In other words:

First identify and categorize your ideal customers, those who can most benefit from your services:

- Critical/Essential Customers – Those that benefit most from your service mission and capacity and are thus most likely to be repeat customers.

- Urgent/Important Customers – Those that benefit from your service mission and capacity, but can obtain similar services from your competitors and they know it.

- Supportive/Optional Customers – Those that benefit minimally at best from your service mission, but are better served by your competitors.

Once the markets are classified into these categories, you must identify the best means of reaching the desired markets.

After the means of reaching the market are identified, they too must be categorized:

- Critical/Essential Means – Those that must be used to reach the market.

- Urgent/Important Means – Those that facilitate reaching the market, but are not essential reaching the market.

- Supportive/Optional Means – Those that might reach the market, but are not as effective as required.

Next the resources needed for each means of reaching the market are identified and categorized:

- Critical/Essential Resources – Those essential to reaching the market and without which the message will fail

- Urgent/Important Resources – Those that facilitate reaching the market, but are not essential to delivering the message.

- Supportive/Optional Resources – Those that facilitate reaching the market, but are ancillary to delivering the message and the absence of the resource will not affect the message.

Graphically:

Critical/Essential Customers
Critical/Essential Means	Urgent/Important Means	Supportive/Optional Means
Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources

Urgent/Important Customers
Critical/Essential Means	Urgent/Important Means	Supportive/Optional Means
Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources

Supportive/Optional Customers
Critical/Essential Means	Urgent/Important Means	Supportive/Optional Means
Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources	Critical/Essential Resources Urgent/Important Resources Supportive/Optional Resources