“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

Have you thought about your strategy or business planning for the financial year?

If you haven’t done your planning before the financial year started, it is never too late! Business planning is an ongoing process not a one off exercise. One thing that you would be looking for when doing your business planning is to include a re-evaluation of your SWOT.

What is SWOT and what does it mean to you and your business?

SWOT is the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in your business right now.

• Where are you at now with all the changes around Covid?
• Where are you doing well and where are you falling short?
• What is your competition doing? Are they providing better service, lower prices, more flexibility? Or have they introduced a new service or product that differentiates them?
• How are you going to differentiate yourself?
• How are you going to get the competitive advantage rather than you opposition?
• Are there opportunities out there that you have not investigated? Or new markets, new products?
• Should you be diversifying?
• Should you cater to a different customer demographic?
• Do you need all the staff you had before, or should you downsize, or cut costs elsewhere?
• Are you operating as LEAN as you can?
• Should you narrow your offerings and become a specialist in a specific area?

Regardless of how and what you decide, put it down on paper and start your budgeting based on these assumptions.

Identify how each of these effect your numbers and try different scenarios. The numbers will make your viable options clearer. Remember to be realistic in your assumptions.

Start your budgeting and forecasting for the year today.

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