Business Reflections Into The New Year

I can still hear the wonderful singing of Christmas carols in the air and as we enter into yet another last week of December, I feel that it is important to take some time away from the festivities and reflect about how we can further move our organisation forward.

It should never just be business as usual or have a sense of abandonment in the planning of corporate strategy. There must be a deep sense of reverence as your employees have staked their future and trust in you taking a positive leadership role. Your company exudes a strong sense of belonging and trust that a long time to build and cultivate.

So here are some of my end of the year corporate reflection that I hope will provide you with some guidance and encouragement.

Reflection 1: Get Advice From The Right Source  

The fastest way of getting yourself confused is to get advice from a friend who has never cared about your industry. Stop trying to get acceptance from the uninterested. Unless you are in sales and desperately need the commission to pay off the monthly mortgage.

Reflection 2: Communicate Clear Product Advantages

You can design your product in a unique way but must make clear about the various advantages of your product. You want to ensure that your customers are rather ingenious in choosing your product over thousands of others in the market-place.

Reflection 3: Market Research

It is not a definite advantage that you invest in market research. Tne reason may be that you have not spent enough time thinking about the various questions and bias of your future customers that can be incorporate into the market research. Getting right answer to wrong questions may not be useful.

Reflection 4: Emphasise The Importance Of Training

It is good to work in an organisation that values your contribution and will want to invest in your training to keep up with new technology. This shows that you are considered as a valued member of your team. They want to invest in your training to boost your abilities and keep you as a valuable contributor to the organisation.

Reflection 5: The Importance Of Networking

Learn to network with different professionals within your industry, including your immediate competitor. There could be opportunities for collaboration in large projects in the future.

Reflection 6: Spend Quiet Time Just Reading

Spend some time to read and learn a new business concept. You can use an audio-book if you are busy driving around doing sales. Alternatively, if time is in short supply, you can download executive summaries which are normally about 3 pages long and highlight the important sections of the book.

Reflection 7: Discuss With Your Loyalty Customers

Spend some time talking to your loyal customer. Invite this customer to your office and discuss intently what makes your product beat the competition. Of course, you should allow this customer to provide negative but constructive feedback to allow for more product improvement.

Reflection 8: Provision Of New Ideas

Invite your staff or customer to provide constructive ideas to "creatively disrupt or destroy" your current product offering. In this way, you can find new ways of improvement.

Reflection 9: Cultivate A Social Mission

Find new social missions to cultivate and mentor. In this way, your employees can suggest social causes close to them and feel more rooted in your company.

Reflection 10: Productive Meetings

Try to have much more productive meetings and clearer agendas. It is also important to have a follow-up after the meetings to ensure a sense of continuity. You should have the meetings minutes circulated for all the reflect and act on it.