Preparing Your Business for the New Year

A new year signifies new opportunities and challenges in your business and being prepared is key for success. Depending on the industry your business operates in, now is the perfect time to identify ways to make the business better, more profitable, and more rewarding. This includes housekeeping tasks like updating technology, evaluating staffing needs you might require in the new year, re-evaluating your pricing models, and looking at online security.

In an effort to help you get started, we have compiled a list of eight things we think you should do during this 'downtime' that will help you prepare your business for the coming year.

1) Review your year
Look at your numbers: revenue, profit margins, and other KPIs. What works and what does not, and why. A record of your history is the best way to prepare for the future.

2) Review your goals
Nearly all successful managers use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based) goals to achieve their goals. So ask yourself, what do you want your team to achieve next year vs the previous years and the years to come?

3) Look at trends
We have an entire trend called Share Economy. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Lynda emerged as the new giants of the business. This trend is only going to grow in the coming years. As a business ask yourself, what can you learn from this phenomenon? How can you position your business to take advantage of such trends or follow in their footsteps?

4) Brainstorm ideas that will boost business
As a business, you should always be striving for bigger and better things. This means coming up with initiatives that are going to increase your business's revenue. Regardless of the industry, you are in, you can always come up with ideas that will help you stand out from competitors, and improve the overall quality of your operations.

5) Update your website
On average, a business should change its look and feel every three years. Have a look at your company's website and see if you can roll out crucial updates while most of your customers are still in holiday mode.

6) Assess social media profiles
Google displays social media stuff in search results, so go to every site where you have a presence and make sure your bio accurately reflects what you do and your experience in the industry.

7) Review Policies
Reviewing current strategies is important to counteract hiccups. Take the feedback that you received from your staff and clients and implement it in your policies. This will ensure repeat business all year round.

8) Thank your employees
At the end of a year, take the time to thank your employees for their dedication, while motivating them for the new year. Having committed employees is an important facet of the business, and without them, it will be difficult to succeed.

We are a specialist recruitment company with a national footprint in South Africa. We have a solid network of contacts in the Engineering, Finance, IT, Supply Chain, and Freight industries and can match the right candidate to any vacancy in your business. If you have a vacancy that you would like to talk to us directly about click here.