Developing a new strategic business plan isn’t necessarily a must-do activity each year, especially if a business’s operations and fiscal position underwent relatively few changes over the previous year. It is, however, more common for small businesses to underutilize strategic planning than to suffer from an excess of planning.
Businesses should strongly consider reworking their strategic plan for the next fiscal year when:
- There’s been an organizational change
- Products or services have changed and their target market along with them
- They’re in the midst of rebranding
- Realities beyond a business’s control caused it to miss targets
- Revenue either decreased or increased dramatically – especially unexpectedly
All of these scenarios may necessitate a need to retool your business plan for the year. If you or your business is going through any of the above – which is more likely in 2020 than just about any year in recent memory – there are a number of planning steps you should consider taking as we head into 2021.
One of those steps for many businesses (and some individuals) will be hiring an accountant. Many of the things we’ll discuss here can be greatly facilitated by a business consultant or CPA with the education and experience to provide knowledgeable guidance on these topics.
- Reframe your business and reestablish your goals. There’s a good possibility your overarching business goals are unchanged, but if any of the previously listed things happened, they may have forced a period of introspection and potentially inspired you to recalibrate your definition of success or failure.
- Look at your previous fiscal year’s plan. Are the goals you set previously still relevant? Do some projects need to be abandoned? You may need to develop new key performance indicators (KPIs) or change the way you’re tracking existing KPIs to better track current-state success.
- Establish ways to track progress for the ideas you’ve laid out in steps one and two. Also take the time to determine what is and isn’t working from your existing performance measuring methods. Did your business miss a goal, but it went unnoticed and unaddressed? If things are falling by the wayside, now is the time to figure out how to prevent that from happening next year.
- Get everyone onboard and informed. Making a new business strategy for the upcoming year is only effective if everyone is in the same boat and rowing in the same direction. This may take several internal and even external meetings with management and stakeholders. Comprehensively communicating business changes is always important, especially when big adjustments are in order.
- Figure out your transition from current-state to future-state. Making dramatic modifications to a business’s strategic plan generally isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. People need to be re-tasked, made to focus on new goals and reoriented on business direction. Old business needs to be closed out so new business can be opened. The act of executing strategic changes is an action that often requires its own planning.
In most cases having an accountant, business consultant or CPA will help with creating and implement strategic business plans. If you look through some of the
business consulting services H&H Accounting offers, you’ll see several things that can either facilitate in the creation of a strategic business plan or help you make decisions about necessary business changes for the upcoming fiscal year.
If your business is carrying too much risk, cost controls are proving inadequate or forecasts are being missed, it may be time to make some changes to your business strategy. Accountants specializing in business consulting and
business accounting services can help with all these things. They can:
- Help establish new cost controls
- Develop realistic forecasts
- Create and implement tax planning strategies for the upcoming fiscal year
- Make suggestions on how your business can better manage risk
- Advise on effective methods of managing cash flow during tough times
- Develop budgets
- Perform internal audits and reviews
- Provide accurate compilations and financial statements
Some of these things may sound expensive. If a business is already struggling to make ends meet, where are they going to find the money to not only hire a business consultant but also implement sweeping strategic changes?
In some of these situations there’s really not much of a choice. It’s either come up with a new plan for the next fiscal year or resign yourself to inevitable insolvency.
Keep in mind that business consultants and accountants are there, in part, to save you money. Their services may end up paying for themselves.
Business accounting services can also be as targeted or as broad as you need them to be. You can request they do as little as deliver compilations without any analysis or you can have them help you completely retool your budgets, payroll processes, employee benefits and internal control systems.
Every SMB is different. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution that will help your business return to profitability or, on the flip side, avoid every growing pain. Speaking with a business consultant is the first step toward figuring out exactly how they can best help your business overcome those hurdles.
Whether you’re struggling to keep your head above water, or you need to make some changes to your strategic plan because you’ve outgrown your old one, H&H Accounting can help.
As 2020 comes to a close, many Valley-area businesses are taking another look at their financial situation. It’s been a year of significant changes for many small businesses. Strategic plans that were made in late 2019 or early 2020 may not be at all reflective of the reality of how this year turned out.
We encourage you to
schedule a free one-hour consultation, which we can do over the phone or in your offices. Call us at (480) 561-5805 to find out what our services entail and what we’d suggest for your business.
