In a world where evolving political events can change the market in an instant, and economic instability is still the norm, finding certainty in your business strategy is a rarity.
Business plans and your overriding strategy are no longer written in stone. This means being flexible about your next steps and regularly reviewing your business strategy.
Let’s see how frequent strategic business reviews can help you reduce the uncertainty.
1. Get proactive with your financial forecasting
Review your financial position, metrics and reporting as regularly as possible.
Produce rolling cashflow forecasts to keep on top of your cash position and run scenario planning to look at the best, base and worst-case scenarios. This gives you the best possible visibility into the company’s financial health and gives you enough time to spot the potential shortfalls, understand your cash runway and make adjustments to your spending.
2. Diversify your revenue streams to reduce risk
As part of your strategic review process, you should be looking for opportunities to diversify as a business, generating new and potentially profitable revenue streams.
Explore whether there are new products or services you might offer, and whether you could target new and, yet, untested customer segments. Increasing your online presence to sell more through e-commerce channels is another option. If you can reduce your reliance on a single income source, this reduces the risk level and strengthens your resilience against sudden market shifts or economic downturns that might, potentially, affect one area.
3. Make your operations more agile and efficient
A key part of any strategic review is to focus on driving operational efficiency in the business.
Review your operational workflows on an ongoing basis and look for inefficiencies you could remove, or efficiencies you could add. Embrace flexible models, like outsourcing or adaptive supply chain strategies. This gives you the agility needed to adjust your production or service delivery in response to changing demand or disruptions.
4. Strengthen your customer and supplier relationships
Trusted relationships with your key stakeholders are a vital element of broadening your network, adding stability and making the company a stronger proposition.
As part of your strategic review, analyze your existing customer relationships and supplier relationships. Look for simple ways to strengthen and nurture these connections. Customers want to feel valued, and suppliers are always looking for ways to build greater trust. So, make sure you’re building bridges, communicating openly and nurturing these critical relationships.
5. Invest in technology and data analytics
Digital technology forms the foundations of any forward-thinking small business.
Collecting and analyzing data gives you the foundational information needed to make informed decisions during your strategic review. Use the latest data analytics tools to review market trends, customer behavior and your own internal performance as a business. These outputs will provide actionable insights, making it easier to define your strategy and change direction. Let’s review your business strategy
Doing business is unpredictable at the best of times. But taking the time to review your performance, strategy and business plan is a vital way to reduce this uncertainty.
Book in some time for a strategic review of your business and let’s work together to spot the inefficiencies and find the opportunities for diversification and increased efficiency.
The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.