As a responsible business owner, you’re looking at a lot of different challenges at the moment – your customers are experiencing a cost of living crisis, which reduces the money they have to spend with you, cutting into your revenue. The cost of electricity and gas is rising, meaning it’s more expensive for you to keep the lights on, keep tills running, to manufacture and store goods. Inflation is going up, which means everyone’s money is buying less, and on top of that, if, like the majority of businesses, you’re renting your premises, you may find your rent going up as landlord’s try to pass their own rising costs on to you!
As such, it’s a good time to look at how you can build a safe future for your business that will see it through these challenging times, and avoid some of the big risks.
Growth
While cash may be squeezed and your instinct may be to look inward and consolidate your hold on existing customers, it’s important not to shy away from growth altogether. Growth opens up new markets, brings in new customers and new revenue streams, and may be even more vital than ever for your business.
The most important thing in the current climate is to analyse and control risk and cost. It’s more important than ever to avoid exposing your business – and more critically, your own finances, to uncontrolled costs, bad debt and influence that harms your ability to run your business.
Finding some reliable growth consulting can be a huge help here. They can help you plan growth that’s safe given the extreme factors acting on businesses at the moment, and that’s consistent with your established brand and values, to ensure your customers see continuity as your business evolves to face the times. If you look in London strategic consulting firms are available for many different business sizes and niches.
Optimising Your Business
This is the worst time to be running wasteful processes – every penny counts, and lost time, lost money and lost efficiency all need to be rooted out.
Depending on the size of your business, it could be worth bringing in outside consultants to focus on this exercise. One thing worth bearing in mind, especially if you’re bringing in outsiders is that this can have a negative effect on morale, which can itself be costly. Don’t approach this in an adversarial way with your staff – make sure you’re clear you’re reviewing processes, not people, and if you’re able to assure people this won’t impact jobs, then do so clearly. Don’t make promises you can’t keep though. That can create problems in the future.
