Business Strategy – Year End Considerations
Summary:
As we enter the
final weeks of 2005, you are undoubtedly hunting for gifts. While these are
obvious year-end considerations, you should also be reviewing your business
strategy for 2006.
Keywords:
business
strategy, year-end, revenue increase, fiscal year-end, revenue increase,
employees, goals
Article Body:
As we enter the
final weeks of 2005, you are undoubtedly hunting for gifts. While these are
obvious year-end considerations, you should also be reviewing your business
strategy for 2006.
Business Strategy – 2005
Whether your fiscal year ends in December or doesn’t, the end of the month is a
good time to take stock of how things went in 2005. While the old saying is
“time flies”, it is particularly true for businesses. Business owners tend to
be fixated on two to three-month periods. As a result, they can fail to
see developments over longer periods.
After you’ve taken care of all your holiday gift purchases, you should have
some downtime in the last two weeks of the month. Business tends to slow down
as people deal with the holidays, travel to see family, and so on. This is the
perfect time to go back and consider the business year. Specifically, you
should focus on where your business was in January 2005. What were your goals
at that time? Did you meet them during the year? If not, why? You will almost
always be surprised when you realize how the business developed over the last
year. This global view can give you a better perspective and evaluation of how
things are going.
Business Strategy – 2006
After contemplating 2005, you should give consideration to what you want to
accomplish and where you want to be by the end of 2006. Ask yourself the
following:
1. What is a reasonable revenue increase for 2006 compared to 2005?
2. Are there products or services you should pursue?
3. Are there products or services you should drop?
4. If a strategy is underperforming, does it make objective sense to continue
pursuing it or cut your losses?
5. What are your biggest frustrations and how can you deal with them?
6. Who are your most valued employees and have you taken a moment to thank
them?
7. Who are your least valued employees and what should you do about it?
8. Which vendors or suppliers do great work for you and which don’t?
Many other questions will run through your mind. There are no wrong ones. What
is important, however, is you write the goals and thoughts down and keep them
somewhere private. Next December, you should pull them out and see how things
are going.
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