business planning / 11 posts found
Cash is not Profit and Vice Versa
The purpose of a business is to make money, and that means you have to know the difference between profit and cashflow. Net profit is what you have left after you deduct all your business expenses from all your revenue. You change net profit only by changing the things that affect revenue and expenses. For example, if: You renegotiate with your suppliers, you may get stock cheaper, or carry less inventory Your staff engage with customers better, you can learn more about what they do and don’t like – and get more business You can roster staff differently, you may [...]
A strong strategy is the heart of your successful business
Businesses that have clear objectives or goals, robust accountability and a shared sense of purpose should always outperform those that just show up and go through the motions. Strategy lies at the heart of most successful businesses. To achieve this you need to resource and execute with a clear purpose. Few businesses have a strategic plan or a robust planning process. Changing this situation should be a top priority! Here are two top tips for business owners. Process Creates the Plan Getting strategy at the heart of your success will require you to carve out some time, get a process [...]
8K – Monopoly Control
Onto week six of the 8 Key Drivers of Business Value – Monopoly Control And no, we’re not talking about the board game, and neither are we suggesting the sort of monopoly the likes of big energy companies or Microsoft have. The important things here are how well you hold onto your niche, and what makes your business unique. This fundamentally comes down to two main questions: What makes your business unique? Do your customers care? If you can satisfactorily answer both of these, you’re well on your way to something special. The plus side? You’ll have more control over [...]
Should you invest?
For most of us in business the recent, and continuing, Brexit fiasco has meant that making meaningful investment decisions has proved to be problematic. What will our future trading relationship with Europe look like and how will that affect our own trading results? However, despite Brexit we still need to continue to operate and expand our businesses, which will require investment. It would be foolhardy to forget that in the UK we have an extremely generous tax allowance, aptly called the Annual Investment Allowance (AIA), that means we can write off the full cost of qualifying assets against our profits [...]
I want more money!
Prepare, prepare, prepare and if in doubt, prepare some more. If you are looking for someone else to put money into your business, it is your job to convince them. There will always be other businesses after their investment, so you need to make it crystal clear why they should pick yours. The most important factor to your investor will be your figures. These must be correct and must agree. Far too often people approach potential investors with incorrect figures that contradict each other. You need to understand what you are showing your investor. Your management accountant will help you [...]
Proposals for consumer protections when companies collapse
The government is to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent. Government to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent proposed measures will include guaranteeing consumer schemes like Christmas savings clubs can safeguard customers’ money reforms are part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy to ensure markets work in the interests of consumers New laws to protect consumers who have already paid for products but not received them when businesses go bust will be considered by the government, it was [...]
What are you basing your planning on?
One of the difficult things about being a parent is the constant changing. Sometimes it seems as though no sooner have you got yourself sorted, than your child changes. So, the tricks that worked last year no longer seem to work, and the activities that were perfect and enjoyable 6 months ago are suddenly no longer relevant. Planning ahead includes factoring in how your child may change in the intervening period of time. You can’t work out how to entertain a 6-year-old through the holidays based on what you did with a 4-year-old; it simply won’t work. Businesses are similar [...]
How do you eat an elephant?
The answer is, of course, a little bit at a time. Goal, dreams or aims are like elephants, it is far too overwhelming to have your goal as make a million pounds, but breaking that goal down into manageable bite sized pieces will make the obtaining of your goal possible, and certainly more probable. We have reached the time of year when we start to think about next year and what we want to achieve going forwards, so now is a good time to start understanding how to set out good goals, to enable you to reach your final aim. [...]
Powers of attorney
There are two types of power of attorney that you can grant: Firstly, to appoint someone you trust to make decisions about your health and wellbeing if you become incapacitated, and Secondly, to appoint someone you trust to make decisions about your finances if you cannot manage your financial affairs. You can choose to make one type or both, but please note, there is a different process in Scotland and Northern Ireland. A lasting power of attorney (LPA) is a legal document that lets you (the ‘donor’) appoint one or more people (known as ‘attorneys’) to help you make decisions [...]
Are you in training for the Brexit Marathon?
March 2017 was the date we declared we were going to exit from the EU. This set the deadline for our national drawbridge to be raised on the rest of Europe at the 29 March 2019. This is the first time we have separated ourselves from our largest trading partner since we joined the Common Market – the precursor to the EU – 1 January 1973. It is useful, when considering the effective strategies we could employ to weather the changes that this process will likely create, to visualise the exit as running a marathon. The comparison may seem to [...]