The Consulting Firm is keen on using new and more efficient tools for the long-term strategy for consultation. The reason for this is that they have experienced their client not knowing exactly where the problem lies, or they believed that the problem lies in a particular area, but during the consultation, they found that the problem lies in another area than expected. A tool aiding them to explore where the opportunities and development potential can be found had to be designed. This tool then served as a pre-assessment instrument.

Businesses are shifting from solely using financial KPIs to measure their success to a customer-centred focus approach. As returning customers are the key to long-term success, new business models and strategies are needed. Therefore, a literature-based review approach was applied. A broad range of more than 20 models, ranging from 1957 until 2019, were explored and assessed in detail. Eleven got chosen to be incorporated into the “Development Potential Model”. After that, the desired tool, namely, a generic questionnaire, was created.

As a result, a “Development Potential Questionnaire” was developed. This is a generic questionnaire consisting of 100 questions covering five major business fields. The five major business fields are logistics, operations, marketing and sales, human resource management, and sustainability. Each business field exhibits 20 questions that are derived from a chosen model from the assessment. The five-point scale from the Likert scale method was chosen to rate the outcome. This shall serve as a simple overview of the results. The evaluation at the end of this questionnaire will tell the company where the opportunities for development lie. The result from each significant business field can be compared with that of the other fields or analysed within the field itself. Using this tool, the Consulting Firm can immediately see how the result turned out and may directly start working on those points. As for the outlook, further research can be done on other business’ fields and the digitalisation of the questionnaire. Also, research can be done on distinguishing the various types of SMEs in Switzerland and their consulting needs.