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Hire&Rental
INDUSTRY NEWS
FEBRUARY 2022
10 tips for business success in 2022 The impact of COVID-19 has forced many business owners and managers to rethink their business strategy, objectives and goals.
By Nicholas Guest As business owners grappled with the complexities of maintaining cashflow, keeping employees safe, managing supply chain challenges, and meeting evolving customer needs, they have been forced to innovate and evolve what they do in a rapidly evolving business landscape. This year will provide plenty of opportunities for Australian business operators who are prepared to continue to evolve and embrace the changing market conditions. We have set out below some strategies and observations that may help set you up for success in 2022.
1. Set goals and celebrate your success Take the time to sit down and set some realistic goals around what success looks like for you over the next 12 months. The process for setting goals typically starts with a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis leading into ways to measure outcomes and take ownership for achieving your goals. This does not need to be complicated and kick-starting the process will not only motivate you to strive for these goals, but it will also help focus your attention on what is important to you (why you do what you do) and may see you revisit the business’s purpose. Make sure to celebrate your wins along the way, no matter how small.
2. Spend more time on the business not in it
Identify the tasks that are of lower value and can be delegated to others. As a business owner/operator your priority should be to work on the business as well as in it.
Nicholas Guest, Partner, Advisory, HLB Mann Judd
This includes setting the business vision and taking actions leading to greater success. If you are spending a large chunk of your time working in the business, it is important that you prioritise valuable time each week to focus on enhancing the business operations. This may be as little as a few dedicated hours each week that are quarantined to working on actions to assist in achieving the most important strategic priorities of the business. While counter intuitive, finding and investing in this time away from the daily operations can lead to improved business performance, success, and enjoyment as a business owner/operator.
3. Ensure your housekeeping is in order To ensure you have access to accurate, reliable, and timely information, invest in technology or process improvement. There have been radical advances in low-cost solutions that can strengthen your competitive position supporting good financial controls and accounting processes. Access to high quality information supports agile decision-making and provides greater optionality to business operators to respond to opportunities including access to financing or incentives, customer/supplier contracting and succession options.
4. Innovate and evolve
The global pandemic has demonstrated how agile we can be when we need to. Take the best of your organisational learnings from the pandemic and identify further opportunities to innovate and evolve your business. Are there opportunities to automate repetitive tasks and processes so your employees can
