5 Best Business Acumen to Develop

3 min readNov 8, 2022

When you run your own business, there are many things you must learn. The key to success in business goes beyond corporate experience. Demonstrating business acumen is one of the most effective ways to advance your career or grow your business. Rather than using ephemeral ideas like gut instinct or business sense, it is crucial to acquire concrete skills and a business approach.
Srikanth Subramanian, CEO of Kotak Cherry, spoke on Figuring Out about improving your business acumen and focusing on the most important things.
Sharing some excerpts here from our insightful conversation-

What is business acumen?

A person with business acumen can use a combination of factors to make the best business decisions. Leadership positions are just some of the ones who need to develop their business acumen competency. It can be applied to everyday situations, such as improving your efficiency at work or solving challenging problems. You are more likely to succeed in your career by developing your business acumen.
Individuals with solid business acumen exhibit specific characteristics that enable them to make sound business decisions. You can see examples of these skills below.

1. Concentration

Focusing on the items that make a difference to your business will allow you to drive success for your team.
Every business has many distractions, so mastering this skill is challenging. Suppose you want to increase customers to your website, but you’re more concerned about the layout or design than about factors that affect visitors, like your SEO.

2. Solution-oriented

Solving business problems is another skill related to business acumen. Gathering relevant information, you assess available solutions and determine which course of action has the best chance of achieving your outcome. The ability to make the necessary adjustments to adapt to new circumstances if things don’t go as planned is a valuable skill.

3. Marketing

An expert in business knows who their target audience is. However, they should also understand how to pinpoint their target audience.
A marketer also knows how to attract that audience using critical marketing angles. Moreover, they must know how to measure and track growth through KPIs.
It doesn’t necessarily mean you must be a marketing expert to have business acumen. The basics are crucial to building acumen.

4. Engaging stakeholders

There are many stakeholders in every business. Its customers implicitly influence a company’s business decisions. Employees, partners, and investors are other stakeholders who may be involved in your business. Keeping these stakeholder needs in balance can be a challenge.
When making decisions regarding your organization, you must consider each stakeholder’s objectives.

5. Awareness of context

Business-savvy individuals understand how their actions affect the organization for which they work. Having emotional intelligence means they can understand their team members’ feelings and handle situations appropriately.
To make the right decisions, you should be able to make them quickly, pivot effectively when things do not go according to plan, and make them with the best outcomes possible.

You will gain strong business acumen by analyzing business problems consistently and making informed decisions as part of your personal development.
So, start learning and be the leader.

Listen to this engaging conversation here.