What are the important next steps in your business?
22nd of September, 2020
What are the important next steps in your business? What do the next six months mean for you?
I would recommend that first, you complete a situational analysis. Reviewing the current situation inside and outside your business. This is commonly referred to as a SWOT analysis.
Carry out a critical review of your business to identify key strengths and weaknesses. Identify opportunities and threats by reviewing the market you serve. Not all markets are going to have the same economic recession. The shape of that recession and how you respond to it is going to be critical. Analysing exactly how your marketplace is going to be buffeted by economic issues will enable you to foresee opportunities and threats and how to seize those opportunities and mitigate those threats.
The second step is to define 2 or 3 critical goals that you need/want to achieve. Make sure that these are “SMARTER goals” and are exactly what is important for you to achieve in the next six months. They should address the outcome of your SWOT analysis. Strengths you wish to enhance, weaknesses you need to eliminate, opportunities to jump on and threats to avoid.
Next, write a detailed action plan to deliver these goals. Without this detailed series of actions, you will not achieve your goals. Breaking these actions into micro activities to be completed day-to-day builds momentum and gives you a great source of satisfaction as they are successfully completed.
You will need a robust financial plan. This is a key step. Cash must keep flowing into your business through enhanced business performance and/or through prudent funding choices that you make with your key financial advisors.
Reducing of costs of waste will be more important than ever. Activities that do not add value to your business and the customer are waste. How much does that waste cost you in time, energy and resources? This step involves eliminating that wasteful activity.
The final step is to carefully manage your key relationships. These relationships are with stakeholders such as customers, employees, suppliers, advisors, service providers and key partners. Often we focus on the first two. All of these relationships are going to be invaluable to you as you move forward.
Managing the next few months with a thoughtful step by step approach will enable you to be resilient and responsive.
If you would like a discussion about SWOTanalysis, SMARTER goals, detailed actions plans and the steps you need to take please email us. We can book in your free zoom/coffee consultation. Take care.
