Most businessmen & professionals are familiar with the concept of internal or position audit, better known as SWOT or SPOT Analysis in management/marketing books.
To recap, the purpose of an internal audit is to appraise the strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, resources & vulnerabilities in an organisation.
Personally as well as professionally, I prefer SPOT Analysis as the "Problems" in SPOT are psychologically easier to solve than the "Weaknesses" in SWOT. The latter is seemingly more inherent in the system.
In this wonderful book, the author puts internal audit into the spotlight with a comprehensive book-length treatment.
Probably due to space, there is only a relatively broad brush on industry analysis.
What I like about the book is the broader context in which the author has put internal audit - synconvergently (thanks to Michael Gelb) with creative strategic thinking, strategic decision making & implementation.
The author has dedicated one full chapter each to illustrate the key results areas to be considered in an internal audit, with a checklist of critical questions:
- Finance;
- Marketing;
- Production;
- Technology & Production;
- Human Resource Management;
- Management Effectiveness;
- Culture & Structure;
- Information Systems;
The writing is crisp & clear. Examples are well illustrated. The track record of both authors, particularly David Hussey, certainly helps in making the book useful in even a due diligence study of acquisitions, mergers, strategic alliances & divestments.
Overall, this book is illuminating.
I would recommend this book to be read in conjunction with any of the following books, to make your appraisal of core competencies, core capabilities, critical success factors & value chains a more complete exercise:
1) 'Scanning the Business Environment', by Francis Aquilar (my personal favourite!);
2) 'Strategic Issues Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Environmental Scanning', by John Stoffels;
3) 'Information Management for the Intelligent Organisation: The Art of Scanning the Environment', by Chun Wei Joo;