While that’s great news for the start-ups and budding entrepreneurs out there it also means it’s never been more challenging to maintain and grow your business in a climate of new competition and innovation.
The solution? To recognise the risks and handle them accordingly. Here are five of the most common modern business challenges, and how to overcome them.
Image
In an era where a business can be made or broken via online reviews and internet presence, never before has maintaining an image been so important.
Your image (whether it’s honesty and integrity, speed and customer service, or prestige professionalism) should be reflected in every aspect of your business. This includes the staff you hire, the emails you send, the branding you embrace and the publicity you seek.
Throughout day-to-day business operations, expansion and new product considerations, a business owner should be asking themselves: “Does this (email, staff member, product, logo, website etc) reflect our core values and the way we want to be seen?”
Staffing
Again and again we hear it’s the people who make a business.
At a time where employees are increasingly mobile the true art is attracting and keeping the right ones. Every business should value their employees and furnish them with the right tools to excel at their jobs.
These include training, mentoring, clear systems and procedures, and recognising a job well done. A happy workplace attracts great staff, but most importantly it keeps them.
Increased competition
With businesses starting all the time and an emerging culture where small business is actively encouraged, new competition is one of the biggest challenges for existing business.
That means business owners should have their ear to the ground for potential competitors but most importantly should be proactive in their business activities.
This proactive approach is about ensuring the highest standards of business and customer service are maintained, while monitoring new innovations and evolving to suit the climate.
Marketing and Customer Loyalty
In line with increased competition, retaining customers who are loyal to your business is imperative.
And with so many businesses vying to get consumer’s attention how do you get your particular message heard?
Fortunately social media and the digital age have opened up new rivers of marketing opportunity, but it’s how a business uses them in a way that represents their image that counts.
This makes marketing and consumer loyalty strategies critical to modern business success.
Cash and resources
Creating and managing adequate streams of income to fund stability and growth is no new thing to business, but it remains one of the greatest challenges.
The best way to tackle it is through comprehensive planning.
While a business may be easy to establish, without a plan it runs the risk of stagnating and flailing within the first few years of operation.
