The three keys
Jim Collins, the author of the book Good to Great, sees these key questions in the following way:
1. The first is what is driving your business from within?
2. The second is what is happening in the outside world you compete in?
3. And finally, you have to ask, given what drives us internally and given what's out in the market, how are we going to come up with something unique to make our business zing?
A top squad
A few years ago I came across some guys who'd really thought about the market and came up with something unique. These former Australian coppers used their forensic expertise to create a software company that has chalked up both export and retail success in Europe, Japan and the USA.
The two data detectives, who've helped authorities with the One.Tel, HIH and other high profile investigations, now are helping businesses find lost data and files.
Expertise in crime
The first question about what internally drives this business has to be bringing their expertise in one area - crime - and applying it to business problems. They, like many businesses, are problem solvers.
The Sydney-based GetData is owned by former federal policeman Graham Henley and New South Wales cop John Hunter. John's brother Dr Brett Hunter, a nuclear physicist, is the third owner. Together the trio make most of their sales offshore.
How did it start?
It started as a classic new age business - in software, export-oriented and heavily dependent on the internet for sales.
GetData has stepped up to the plate in the biggest game on the globe with its RecoverMyFiles and ExplorerView going head to head with Microsoft, Symantec and other major software companies in the cut-throat US retail.
The path to crime!
This is a pretty tidy effort for the two ex-cops who were forensic investigators, and Brett, the physicist, who developed the software.
"We specialise in data recovery software," Graham Henley explained. "Lost or destroyed files, accidentally or deliberately deleted, are a serious and universal problem."
Though former boys in blue, both Henley and Hunter spent 14 years between them in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Asia Pacific Computer Forensics Team.
"We came at data recovery from a different angle having learnt to find deliberately hidden data, not just that lost by small business owners who don't back up their work," Henley said. "We started at the hard end and worked back."
Started online
Their Japanese contract came about when a leading software seller saw his rival secure a rival data recovery product.
They found our product on the internet and thought it was on the money," Henley recalled.
GetData started off with sales over the internet, though Mr Henley says their connection with the small community of international forensic experts has helped opened up doors.
But the threat of the spectacular growth of online transactions has been a big fillip.
"Everyone's increased dependency on information technology in both work and play, combined with the rise in online threats ready to strip us of our electronic assets has meant that the need for personal data recovery software is greater than ever before," John Hunter said.
And computer viruses are not bad news to GetData. "We see a sales spike with every new virus that does the rounds," he said.
A few years ago when MyDoom, which had a nasty payload deleting Microsoft Word, Power Point and Excel files,
RecoverMyFiles was able to retrieve those files.
Now to the second question
On the second question, the boys at GetData could see what was going on out there in the external world or marketplace. They knew a hell of a lot of time-poor small business people were taking enormous risks in not backing up their work, putting client's work and files along with all important tax records at risk.
And when the computer crashes and the deadline for a contract is closing in, then that's when even among the panic, business owners start praying for a solution that will retrieve those files.
The third answer is simplicity
The third question was easy to answer. The product they came up with had to do something simple so that became the name of the business - GetData.
The name is even a great lesson on selecting names that help your marketing effort. All too often I see businesses with clever names but they don't help me understand what problem they potentially could solve for me. And they don't show me what need of mine they will meet.
Answering the three questions will help you know what your business has to aim for to become a stand out operation. If you're going to shoot for the stars in business, you must understand three things:
• What you are as a business?
• What your market needs?
• And how you'll come up with a unique solution.