Ordinis Advisory

30/08/2026

30-Minute Business Challenge

This week's challenge is to identify one piece of information a major customer could ask the business to provide.

It could be:
• energy usage
• fuel consumption
• employee numbers
• insurance information
• safety records
• environmental information
• supplier information

Then spend 30 minutes answering:
• Where is it?
• Who owns it?
• How is it collected?
• Can it be reproduced?
• Could someone else find it?

You don't need to build a new reporting system.

The first step is simply finding out what the business already knows.

27/08/2026

Could your business answer a major customer's information request within 30 days?

Try this simple test.

Pick one piece of information a large customer might reasonably ask for.

For example: Annual electricity consumption.

Now ask:
• Where is the information?
• Who owns it?
• What period does it cover?
• Is it complete?
• Could someone else find it if that person was away?
• Could the business provide the same information next year?

If those questions are difficult to answer, that's useful information in itself.

It doesn't necessarily mean the business needs another system.

It may simply need clearer ownership and a better process.

That's governance in practice.

25/08/2026

Your business might not have to report climate information. But could your customer ask for it?

This is becoming an important question for growing SMEs.

A large customer may need information from its suppliers to support its own climate reporting.

That could mean being asked:
• How much electricity does the business use?
• What fuel does it consume?
• What are its major sources of emissions?
• Can it provide information about environmental impacts?

The good news is that preparing for these questions doesn't necessarily mean buying new software or building a sustainability department.

A sensible first step is understanding what information the business already has and where it is held.

• Finance may have electricity and fuel costs.
• Operations may have production and waste information.
• Procurement may have supplier information.

The information may already exist. It just may not be organised.

Our latest article explains why this is becoming a governance and commercial issue for SMEs.

Climate reporting can sound like an issue for large corporates. For many SMEs, the immediate reaction is that the new Australian climate reporting requirements do not apply to them, so there is nothing they need to do.That is only part of the story.An SME may not have a direct obligation to prepare....

23/08/2026

30-Minute Business Challenge

Choose one system your business already uses.

Spend 30 minutes answering these five questions:

1. What problem was the system originally intended to solve?

2. Is it actually solving that problem?

3. What time or capacity has it created?

4. What decisions are better because of it?

5. What are employees still doing outside the system?

You may discover that your system is delivering more value than you realised. You may also discover that the business is paying for functionality it isn't using.

Both are useful findings.

The objective isn't to have better technology. It's to have a better business.

20/08/2026

A quick test before your next systems investment

Before approving a new system, ask:

What will we be able to do afterwards that we cannot do now?

Be specific.

Will it:

✔ Reduce administration?

✔ Increase capacity?

✔ Improve customer service?

✔ Give leadership better information?

✔ Reduce risk?

✔ Allow the business to grow without adding overhead at the same rate?

If the answer is simply:

"It will make things easier,"

keep asking questions.

A good systems investment should create a measurable improvement in how the business operates.

18/08/2026

Is your business measuring the right return from its systems?

When considering new technology, it is easy to focus on the price tag.

But what happens after implementation?

Could the business:
• take on more customers without adding the same level of administration?
• give managers better information sooner?
• reduce reliance on one person who knows how everything works?
• spend less time reconciling information?
• identify problems before they become expensive?

These are all potential returns from a systems investment.

Time saved is only valuable when the business knows what to do with that time.

Our latest article looks at how growing businesses can think about systems ROI beyond the software licence and implementation cost.

Growing businesses invest heavily in systems. ERP platforms. CRM systems. payroll platforms. project management software. business intelligence tools. workflow automation.The business case often looks straightforward. The system costs $X. Implementation costs $Y. The expected saving is $Z.But this a...

16/08/2026

30-Minute Business Challenge

Choose one repetitive task your team would like to automate.

Before researching software, spend 30 minutes answering:

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

Then ask:
• Does the process need to exist?
• Which parts actually add value?
• Where do errors occur?
• Who owns the outcome?
• What happens when something falls outside the normal workflow?
• What will the business do with the capacity created?

You may discover that the best solution is automation.

You may discover that the process needs to be simplified first.

Or you may discover that the process doesn't need to exist at all.

The best automation is sometimes the process you no longer need to automate.

13/08/2026

Before automating a task, try this test.

Ask four questions:

1. Does this process need to exist?

2. Could it be simplified first?

3. Who owns the outcome when something goes wrong?

4. What will the business do with the time saved?

If the answer to the fourth question is simply "the team will have more time", keep going.

Where will that capacity create value?

Automation should create capacity for better work, not simply make existing administration faster.

12/08/2026

A great morning with the Toowoomba Business Partners team.

Erin Wright recently had the opportunity to speak with the group about her experience working with growing businesses and the importance of understanding the problem before jumping to a solution.

Questions around pricing, profitability, bottlenecks, scalability and the owner's goals are often where the most useful conversations begin.

As a member of the Toowoomba business community, Ordinis Advisory is proud to support groups like Toowoomba Business Partners that create opportunities for local business owners to connect, share ideas and learn from each other.

A big thank you to the team for the opportunity to present and for the generous feedback. We really enjoyed the conversation.

11/08/2026

Is automation actually saving your business time?

It is easy to look at a repetitive task and think:

"We should automate that."

But before investing in software, ask a different question:

What will the business do with the capacity created?

If automation saves 10 hours a week, but those 10 hours are simply replaced with monitoring exceptions, fixing data or managing the new system, the expected benefit may never materialise.

The real return comes from what the business can do because the capacity has been released. More customer service. Better analysis. More time for managers to lead. Greater capacity to take on work.

That is where automation becomes a business investment rather than simply a technology project.

Read the latest OA article:

Business automation is often presented as the answer to operational inefficiency. Reduce administration. Eliminate repetitive work. Improve accuracy. Save time. Scale without increasing headcount.The promise is compelling.For growing businesses, however, automation can sometimes deliver something ve...