Andre Van Zyl’s practical handbook written for owners and leaders of small to medium-sized businesses, including those in his profession, accounting firms.
 
The purpose of Business Beyond Survival is to be a hands-on guide to the enterprise’s profitable, sustainable and enjoyable growth.
 
Business Beyond Survival is written and illustrated in a how-to and why style that makes it ideal for business owners and leaders – and their advisers. The book is built around five key concepts:

1.      The evidence and research foundation of the strategy, e.g. industry structure, specific and generic competitors, macro-environmental trends impacting the business into the future, product-market fit and benchmarks for the balanced scorecard analysis.
2.      The importance of human capital management to ensure a stable, motivated and highly competent workforce that is culturally aligned with the business.
3.      Disciplined process management of each stage in the value chain, from material and labour inputs to delivery to customers and after-sales service.
4.      Customer centricity so that everyone in the business can confidently answer this question: “If you are not serving a customer’s needs directly or indirectly, what are you doing here?”.
5.      Balance sheet management based on maximising a sustainable ROI.
 
Of particular relevance to me as the founder of Beaton and our world-leading measurement and benchmarking of clients’ satisfaction with their external accountants, is the guidance provided to diversify their services into the broad spectrum of advisory services.
 
To quote Andre, “2025 is a great opportunity for professional advisers to add value to their services and grow their practices by developing new, productised services to assist clients to develop courage and confidence to take on the challenges head-on. Clients have an urgent need for practical, user-friendly advice and professional engagement beyond tax and compliance”.