TOOLS FOR REVIEWING BUSINESS DIRECTION FOR 2017

As the economic landscape changes, it’s important to regularly review your business plan to discover whether it still works for your business given the internal and external changes that are bound to have occurred. The start of the year is a great time to review your business’s direction and goals. We’ve put together a list of aspects of your business that are important to review, as well as some tools to help you through the review process.

Purpose

What is your unique selling proposition – the thing that your business and no other can offer to its customers? Is it still unique? Do your customers still want it? Will they want it in a year’s time, or are changes in the marketplace making your selling proposition more and more obsolete?

Goals

What business goals did you set last year? Have you achieved any of them? Are you on track (and on time) to achieving the others? If not, why not? Are your current business goals still relevant to the opportunities and challenges that your business is facing? Should you create new goals or modify your existing ones?

Forecasts

What are the current economic and business forecasts for the country in which you primarily do business? If they’re correct, are they likely to affect your business income and costs? Are there any upcoming potential legislative changes that might have an impact on the way that you do business?

Strategy

Are your current business strategies working? Are they working as well as they could be? Are you facing any challenges in putting your business strategies into practice – for example, with staff who are resistant to the processes required for a particular strategy? Do your business strategies still match your goals?

Operation

Are your business operations efficient and streamlined? Are you losing time and/or money in processes that could be improved? Do you find that sometimes it takes so long to react to market changes (for example, swings in technology preferences) that your business loses ground – and customers – to the competition?

Tools

We’ve put together a collection of templates that can help you to assess your business:

Maximise your review

If you want to ensure that you are getting the most out of your planning, my advice is to build relationships with consultants and advisors in the various fields of your plan and strategy, such as marketing strategists, accountants, lawyers, insurance brokers, mortgage brokers, HR specialists, etc.

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