The seismic and devastating impact of Covid-19 on the majority of business plans cannot be overstated. It is a fair assumption that things will never be the same again for some time; if ever. Hence the appearance in the media of the phrase “The New Normal”. Since time immemorial successful enterprises have had to adapt to new circumstances and seek new and alternative opportunities. Often radical change does present new opportunities – we just have to detect and exploit them. The most important asset to any business is the people that work for it. Individual employees at all levels are currently reviewing their motivation and priorities – quality of life and appreciation thereof has become most important to many as a result of the pandemic. There is interesting data emerging from the employee experience during the lockdown period: 97% of marketing and communications staff have reservations about returning to work and 82% nervous about travelling into work (Insight agency … [Read more...]
5 essential traits for Business Developers
Every business needs to make sales. From responding to leads to actively selling, you must ensure you have the right person in place to secure those essential business wins. LGBA’s international business development expert Lesley Rubenstein outlines the top traits you should look for when hiring for this crucial business role. Trait One - Outgoing Personality – on and off the phone. Having an outgoing personality is probably the no. 1 trait required to be a great business developer. No shrinking violets need apply! Why? Think about it! You will need to contact businesses you may never have been in contact with before, either on behalf of your own company, or someone else’s. You have very little time to convince that business to spend time with you to determine why they should do business with you. Basically, you need to excel at sales pitches – but what are you selling? This is a bit different from selling a product per se – it’s more about why the business you are contacting … [Read more...]
Are you ready to put your STAMP on 2020?
Strategy Targets Accounts Marketing People However you voted in December, and whatever your preferred outcome, we know the UK will be leaving the EU on 31st January. The clock starts on the transition period… but don’t worry, this is not a Brexit rant! The start of every New Year is the perfect time to restock your thought-bank, recharge your batteries and do some planning. Here’s how you can put your STAMP on your business in 2020 by focusing on these 5 important areas: Strategy Most small businesses do not have an up-to-date business plan, which means they tend to focus only on shorter-term outcomes. And as the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there.” The classic result is an initial feeling that you are responding to the market and widening the range of services you provide, but this soon develops into a business spread so wide that it’s impossible for potential customers to define what … [Read more...]
Why appoint a Virtual Non-Executive Director or Strategic Advisor?
If you run a business that has strategic challenges to address, or if you are looking to raise it to the next level, where can you turn for advice? The answer may be appointing a Non-Executive Director or Strategic Advisor. Even very successful businesses can benefit from an external independent view to help make better strategic choices and challenge established thinking. What can a Virtual Non-Executive Director do for your business? Every business has a different mix of challenges and opportunities at a given point in time and often the owners or management feel their business is unique and difficult for an “outsider” to understand. To an extent that may be true, however, a VNED’s experience of the dynamics of multiple businesses and transferable knowledge of best practice from other markets is proven to bring significant benefits to management decision making. Our Home Counties and London Group Business Advisors have developed a Virtual Non-Executive … [Read more...]
The Value of MEASUREMENT
Knowing what to measure and how to measure it can make running your business easier. To make better decisions you need to gather the relevant data and format it into a report showing the essential information. Your decision makers can then be taught how to use that report to make sensible decisions or to recognise that they need additional information or instructions from you. For Measuring your Cash Flow you need to know: Who your debtors are, how much they owe you and when they are likely to pay. Who your creditors are, how much you owe them and when you need to pay them. What your regular outgoings are (rents, rates, salaries etc). Only when you have gathered the data can you then make a reasonably accurate Cash Flow Forecast. This will enable you to make decisions about who to chase for cash and who to pay in order to manage the cash in your business. When making a decision on buying a piece of Capital Equipment you … [Read more...]
How to Stretch for Success – Business Lessons from our 3 x Ben Nevis Bike Challenge
Some businesses move from year to year making small adjustments but never stretch themselves for the big achievements. Other more ambitious businesses, and their leaders, try to find a way to achieve leaps forward that at first sight look too hard or possibly foolhardy. Some succeed and others fail. Without setting ambitious goals, taking calculated risks, implementing careful strategic planning and proactive problem solving along the way, the big leaps are rarely made. I would like to draw an analogy with a group of middle aged mountain bikers that I ride with most weekends, typically covering 12-15 miles on local technical trails. There was a collective desire for a more challenging project to stretch us. Various options for a suitable longer trek were discussed at “team meetings” - aka post-ride drinks at the pub. This compares with business strategy meetings where ideas are floated, discussed, filtered, and prioritised. In January 2018 the … [Read more...]
Brexit – Let’s face it!
With Brexit dominating headlines, the importance of having the best leadership team, who will be able to derive and implement strategy to steer a company or organisation through change and uncertainty is of paramount importance. Deal or no deal will have a significant impact on our entire economy which executives and managers will have to address. No deal will certainly not mean no action required, in fact it most certainly will mean the opposite. The outcome may be viewed as providing significant opportunity and or challenge which will impact on all sectors of the economy and all commercial functionality whether it be sales, marketing, engineering, research. manufacturing, logistics, IT, human resources, finance or legal. Uncertainty must be addressed and not be allowed as an excuse for inaction; contingency planning is necessary. We are fortunate in having a fabulous pool of talent, skills and experience in the UK; a significant proportion of which is currently … [Read more...]
Five crucial ways to improve your business productivity
You will probably be familiar with the adage: Productivity = Potential – Interference. Many of us are battling daily with interference of one sort or another, both external and internal. Potential is not always something that is easy to quantify, or to realise. Growing a business, finding a market, and bringing in orders takes time and effort, and often a bit of luck. It’s also likely to take some time, so those frustrating interferences are the key focus if you want fast results. Wages & Productivity Superficial measures do not always show the bigger picture – if two businesses are paying different wages, you cannot assume that the lower payer makes cheaper goods, without knowing their productivity. Obviously, if the higher-paying business is more productive than the lower payer, their output might still be cheaper. Higher productivity gives you the means to take better control of your prices and margins, allowing you to undercut competitors without undue pain, or to … [Read more...]
Top 5 Challenges for Fast Growing Companies
If you’ve got a good business idea and the energy to push it forward, it’s not uncommon to achieve 100% year-on-year growth in your first few years of business. However, if your company growth is moving at speed, there are some key challenges you’ll need to get to grips with to keep it from crashing into the barriers. The most important of which is: 1. Decision Making At Speed As you are hit by a rapidly increasing list of questions to answer, it can be tempting to favour making snap decisions from a limited range of choices. On the face of it, it looks like you are moving forward at speed. But quick decision-making may not always get you to your desired result. According to some research in this area by Paul Nutt in his book ‘Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps That Lead to Debacles’ business decisions that are taken off the back of looking at just two options can have more than a 50% failure rate. Counter-intuitively as soon as you start to … [Read more...]
Power up your business with a Virtual Non-Executive Director
The benefits of Non-Executive Directors are well understood by many successful business owners. They bring an independent view and additional experience that enable better decisions to be made by the management board. Our Home Counties and London Group Business Advisors have developed a Virtual Non-Executive Director (VNED) service that offers Managing Directors and business owners the same independent view and advice without the complexity of shareholdings, appointing legal directors and director’s service agreements. Every company is different and yet there are many similar and transferable aspects from other industries and markets. Our experts are able to utilise their broad business experience and extensive network of contacts to support companies to achieve their strategic objectives. An independent view that challenges existing or new strategies can substantially enhance the robustness of a company’s direction. Sometimes difficult decisions are required to deal with business … [Read more...]
How SMEs can use Cloud Computing to punch above their weight in business
Having a well thought through business strategy is key to keeping ahead of your competition. Adopting cloud computing as part your strategy, can be an important factor in striving for excellence. Cloud computing can enable SME businesses to compete with larger business globally. It can allow both Start-up and established businesses to scale up with ease. This article will demonstrate some of the opportunities that are available to businesses that adopt cloud computing while considering the potential downsides. What is the cloud and where is it? Cloud computing is an Internet-based computing model that provides shared data and computer processing resources typically on a “pay as you go” model. Up front capital costs are replaced with ongoing variable costs. Unlike traditional local IT, capacity can be rapidly scaled up and down with minimal management resources. Cloud computing enables ubiquitous on-demand access via PCs and mobile devices. Cloud services are … [Read more...]
