Make this your best year in business!
The new financial year is here and it’s time to ask yourself, do you want to make 2016 your best year in business so far? If the answer is yes, then now is the time to start considering how best to move forward and where to get started.
Begin with the end in mind.
Where do you want to be this time next year? Maybe it’s about lifestyle and you’d like to have better work life balance, with shorter hours. Maybe it’s to have happier staff or to have your business in a position to sell. Whatever your goals are for 12 months from now, write those down. Setting a clear vision for what you want to accomplish is always the first step to getting there.
Any time is a good time to start measuring and analysing your business drivers - revenue, margin, overheads, productivities, work in progress, conversion rates, key ratios etc etc. Have you been thinking about moving to a cloud accounting system? Get ready to start the new financial year more organised and informed about your business than ever.
What lessons can be learned from last year?
Understanding where you performed well and no so well in the previous 12 months, will give you an insight into the areas of your business that might need a little more in the way of your time or resources. Looking at your business as a whole, not just the financials, can you see areas for improvement like establishing a sales process, reducing debtor days and increasing cash flow, client retention, staffing and retention, pricing.....? It’s important to remember that everything in your business reflects in your bottom line.
Can’t see where you’re going wrong or right?
If reflecting on the past 12 months isn’t shining much light on the issues, perhaps it’s time to revise those KPI’s like utilisation rates, current ratio and break even points should be at the foundation of every businesses KPI’s. That means implementing, measuring and analysing the staff efficiency, assets vs. liability and your profit and loss as a starting point.
If you have solid KPI’s and you’re receiving reports on these things, but you still can’t get a good sense for what’s working? Think about getting help with dashboard and management reporting.
Get in the time machine
Once you have a vision for the future, combined with some achievable KPI’s you can start back planning month by month, quarter by quarter where you want to be, so you can get a feeling for if you’re on the right track or not, start to measure and manage now. Don’t leave it until it’s too late to change the outcome.
Be honest with yourself
Be honest with yourself about your businesses strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own. As business owners and managers it’s easy to slip into feeling like you have to do it all yourself. This is your chance to be the best business you can be for 2016, so it’s time to get real about where you need help. That might mean investing in internal staff and resources to ensure they’re performing at their best or hiring an outsourced advisor and sounding board, to help you on the road to improvement.