business

Credit Unions must (seriously) reinvent their brand for millennials to compete for account deposits and financial services

Millennials are such a vital generation for financial service providers to address, not only because many of them are now coming into sizable personal income and surpluses through jobs and inheritance, but millennials are distinctive in their fluent use of technology and their outlook on finances, economy, family life and careers.

This is the start-up generation that is making a living out of entrepreneurship that can be deeply- personal, ventures such as ad- and donation-funded YouTube video channels, blogging, ‘Instagramming’, creating and playing computer games, inventing new drinks in a makeshift home brewery or using urban art for social and political activism.

Credit Unions have been traditionally less-visible and less-known than big national banks, not because they offer less-advantageous banking services but mostly because they are limited by their membership (members of a community or employees of the same company) and by their low marketing budget.

Quite often you drive on the highway and see billboards displaying a variety of ads, including some for services of commercial banks. It may be no surprise, then, that when you want to open an account, you immediately think of these banks. While older generations might be more aware of smaller financial institutions, younger people seem to prefer convenient and ostentatious banks. Or do they?

Are they making an informed personal choice or one that stems from innocent ignorance of available options? Do credit unions really not have what young people want, or are they just not focusing their sales and marketing on what is actually a very natural fit?

Examining the values of younger generations, including millennials uncovers several shortcomings inherent to credit unions, but also reveals solutions for attracting new deposits and business.

Each generation is not always easy to understand by those outside it, but they have some defining characteristics. Millennials are considered to be individuals born between roughly 1980 and 1997.

Some general observations on their behavior and values were synthesized into 10 characteristics by this Indeed article. By considering those, we can clearly see where credit unions need to step it up, if they are going to attract the attention of the millennial generation which is already making bold financial decisions and lifestyle choices that lock in their commitments, personal connections, and their growing balances with financial service providers.

They value meaningful motivation, are free-thinking and creative.

This generation is greatly inspired by personal success stories. While seeking career advancement and ways to be recognized in the workplace, millennials are also interested in the personal touch. They value ideas of substance, personal growth, and non-traditional out-of-the-box achievements. They’d most likely be attracted to a credit union with an interesting history or one which shows unique initiatives that surprise but offer a meaningful connection with its members and the community.

Millennials challenge the hierarchy status-quo while placing importance on relationships with superiors and valuing social interactions in the workplace.

They are more interested in having fruitful and productive relationships even if it means breaking the norm rather than abiding by established rules which are safe but hinder their development and progress. Their attitude stems from confidence, ample education and a disillusionment with the society their parents helped create. They will not overhaul something just for the sake of it but will seek constructive means to make things better in a way that includes their own mentality.

Since they seem to be openly receptive to feedback and recognition, they will appreciate a supportive team-like environment, whether it’s at work or in the businesses they collaborate with.

Any policies, financial services or customer relationship strategies are worth exploring that can tackle these aspects of their behavior by tapping into the need for connection but also a rebellious streak that is still “chill” and kind. Credit unions need to come up with measures that change things that are not working and that adopt innovative techniques to deal with different financial problems and sore spots such as loans for housing, transportation, start-ups, and even offering financial education to protect millennials and their families from bad decisions.

With an intuitive knowledge of technology and constant exposure to rapidly evolving software and apps, millennials are open and adaptive to change.

They will seek out and adopt the services and products that fulfill their needs. There is an opportunity here for credit unions to figure out what needs these are and adjust their range of services. The first step, however, is to truly step into the 21^st century in terms of technology. It may not be possible for credit unions to have ATMs everywhere, but given the digital behavior of this generation, having easy-to-use, highly-performing apps can offset this disadvantage.  Many prefer to manage their investments, checking and savings accounts, all through mobile apps. Millennials want secure banking on-the-go in an attractive and easy user experience with motivating messages and indicators that nudge their personal finances in the right direction.

This generation places importance on tasks rather than time.

This may be true in the work environment but as far as their financial behavior, millennials are always looking for quick answers and solutions to their questions and problems. That is not to say that they’re superficial. They have a passion for learning and are definitely more inclined to be financially savvy than the previous generation. They are more informed about and more concerned with saving money, debts of any kind, budgeting and overspending, investments and money-making side-hustles.

A financial institution that doesn’t just treat them as a number in a ledger but makes them feel trust in their capacity to offer solutions and honest advice will likely earn not just their business but their loyalty, too.

A few other things that credit unions can do is look at this generation’s lifestyle choices and find a niche to expand their offerings of financial services. Since millennials are postponing the start of their family but are eager to adopt pets, can a credit union offer a package that includes pet insurance? Are there any rewards for the customer if they visit a doctor that the credit union recommended from its community, even from its pool of members? Are there opportunities for investment and retirement accounts? What kind of marketing campaign can a credit union develop to take advantage of geographical and economic diversification? Is there a way to acknowledge some of the behaviors and beliefs many millennials have exhibited such as anti-corporatism, joining cooperatives like urban gardens in their neighborhoods, shopping at farmers markets and supporting small producers’ associations, boutique grocery stores and eco-living communities?

Becoming millennial-friendly doesn’t necessarily mean completely-overhauling the way credit unions do their core business but rather adapting to the needs of potential customers by rethinking the outward-facing layers that customers experience directly to better market and facilitate what credit unions already do best. As not-for-profit financial institutions, credit unions benefit from a good reputation supported by their resilience through economic crises, but the old-fashioned, traditional way of doing business is a detriment to further development and survival.  Still, retro is cool, so old-fashioned can also be hip.

By starting to understand and service the millennial customers of today, credit unions can stay relevant, show their value, and broaden their reach to new customers now and into the coming future.

 

In a previous article, we discussed the importance of a SWOT analysis. One of the main functions of the SWOT analysis is to help formulate strategies to keep the business running and help it grow. Here, we will look at the most common reasons why some strategies have been successful while others have failed.

‘Strategy’ is a magic word that can have different meanings in different industries. Some businesses mention management and operations, others expanding their market share, while others focus on maintaining their customer base or constantly innovating.

Generally speaking, it is a set of principles used to achieve the company’s goals; and for that reason, it tends to be business-specific. Its success or failure also tends to be business- and industry-specific. There is no infallible strategy that can be applied to any and all businesses, in any field or economic cycle. It’s the result of a convergence of favorable factors with sound decisions, clear goals and dedicated involvement of all stakeholders.

Some of the best advice about business comes from those in business. If you have no seasoned tradesman to help devise a strategy, you can find many resources online. The three basic business strategies, according to Porter are: cost differentiation strategy, product differentiation strategy and growth strategy. These broad approaches have been analyzed extensively by economists, business owners and politicians alike, and to prevent redundant work, we will concentrate on actionable, specific strategies, stemming from these three.

We will analyze each and offer tips in each category so you can see how the advantages and the risks apply to you. The strategies often go hand-in-hand, where you can design a marketing plan combined with product placement.

Cost-cutting and optimization – do’s and don’ts

What do most companies begin with? They look at pricing. It makes immediate sense – I set prices based on costs plus a reasonable margin; I cover my costs, and make a profit. But the flaw in this strategy is that customers don’t think about business’ costs – their main consideration is value, i.e. what they think the product is worth. You can’t put out a product or service that costs the company $10 when the consumer thinks it’s not worth more than $8.

Another strategy widely used is setting prices to meet the market – either you make a profit when your product or service’s perceived value surpasses the costs or you are intentionally lowering your costs to compete with other players already established in the market. The risk here is that customer and competitor behaviors can be unpredictable. Your competitor may lower prices even more while you’ve been selling at a loss all along.

Don’t forget the importance of value in your pricing – if you cut costs to bring your prices to the lowest possible point, you will inevitably be sacrificing your product’s value.

Do place importance on the individual customer’s buying habits – and weigh up the risks of setting your prices solely on your product’s market value.

What must a business remember most of all in pricing? The variables used to calculate the products’ costs (raw material prices, energy costs, import/export and logistics tariffs, interest rates) are ultimately and inevitably uncontrollable and unpredictable.

Given that, it is best to be proactive and open to change, as you periodically examine the rise and fall of these various costs and how they impact your profits and pricing.

Product strategies – do’s and don’ts

Celebrity businessman Dave Ramsey inspired entrepreneurs worldwide with the quote: “A goal without a plan is just a dream.” In order to ensure success for your product, you must make sure that your strategy is solid.

A successful product strategy takes these three areas into careful consideration: business and/or financial goals, market and competition, product features and unique selling proposition. Careful planning and development of each key area will allow you to predict your product’s success and/or identify potential problems before they arise.

Do keep a close eye on your competition while ensuring your product offers value to potential users. Market research is an essential part of your product strategy and should never be neglected. Remember to keep an eye not just on your long-established direct competitors but also on potential talent, those up-and-coming start-ups that could topple the status-quo.

Don’t allow your product to get left behind before it’s even had a chance. Many products fail because businesses are unable to adapt quickly enough to our fast-paced and ever-changing market or the business takes too long to launch the product.

Make sure you launch your product right when you see the opportunity in the market, and don’t forget to stay armed with a good supply of risk and change management strategies.

Rethinking how your existing products are made might lead to ideas for structural changes that could make your business more nimble, so you can ramp production up or down profitably or reconfigure operations more flexibly, which allows you to modify or make new products in response to anticipated markets.  That improves your reaction time in the face of risks or opportunities.

Growth strategy – do’s and don’ts

Like with product strategies, planning is key in ensuring your product can grow and adapt to its market environment. Fail to plan, and you plan to fail.

So, what do you need to carefully consider your product’s market?

Is it an existing market, with a well-established competition? If you find yourself struggling to eke out a niche for your product in a sea of similarity, you need to consider market penetration as your main objective. Market penetration is the hardest growth strategy to tackle, and for good reasons. To increase your market share, you must take the time and resources to carefully evaluate how much your product or service is being used by customers compared to the total estimated market for that product or service. Once you have an idea of how far your foot is in the door, you can plan further strategies more effectively, such as differentiation and innovation.

Let’s consider that you are targeting a new market with an existing product. Market development is key here. You may need to consider targeting new geographic areas and launching your product or service internationally. Business trends point to global perspectives, supply, and sales. As a result, many tools have been developed in recent years to help businesses determine how to enter foreign markets.

But what about when your company already has a good market share in an existing market? You may need to consider introducing new products for expansion and will need a product development strategy. Many companies invest in research and development (R&D) to develop their strategy – Apple, for example, invest heavily in Technology R&D in order to ensure they can launch a new and improved version of the iPhone every few years.

Don’t forget to roadmap your product’s trajectory – take the time to establish where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going next.

Anticipating trends in unpredictable markets as well as keeping on top of fluctuating data is a constant challenge, for sure.

Don’t forget to check in regularly with your team and quickly identify any signs that your company could be running into difficulties. Are your stakeholders satisfied, or have they been showing discontent? Have you been missing more and more deadlines and failing to reach deliverables recently? Do you feel that you are switching too erratically from one strategy to another, unable to find one that fits?

Many of these symptoms can be traced back to superficial SWOT analysis and faulty calculations.

Depending on the business owner’s appetite for risk, they can be shapers of their industry or adapters. Some of the most notorious trailblazers we know are Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, while others have chosen to follow their lead and adapt to changing industries across the board. That is not to say that merely adapting to market forces is a bad position to be in. Each entrepreneur chooses their style of doing business and measures success in their own way.

Do carefully evaluate your business strategy and make sure that it is working for you and your product or service. It may seem like a challenge, but it could just be your company’s biggest opportunity yet!

Risk is an unavoidable part of life. Uncertainty shrouds every action, threatening even the best-laid plans. Risk management practices help businesses predict and quantify dangers as precisely as possible to avoid them or minimize their impact.

Every organization should have a risk management plan in place, offering guidance to employees and executives on the proper procedures for qualifying and mitigating hazards at critical business touchpoints.

Below you’ll find strategies for formulating and improving your plan. If you haven’t given risk management a thought before, we hope this article opens your eyes to the value.

It Starts With Your Company Culture

Risk management is only useful if everyone in the company is committed to rooting out dangers wherever they’re hidden. If people fear they will be negatively-judged, or worse, blamed for revealing endemic threats, they’re likely to let them fester until it’s too late to avoid the worst effects.

To create a constructive culture that values risk management, make it clear that employee feedback about potential issues is welcomed and rewarded. Encouraging employees to take ownership of their projects will increase the chances that they’re analyzed for potential hazards. Couple ownership with unambiguous management processes and your culture will grow to embrace risk management as second nature.

Reward Prudent Behavior

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” can be understood to mean that taking risks is always preferable to inaction. This leads organizations to reward those that take bold action, even if it puts the group at undue risk.

Responsible risk assessments must balance possible gains with potential losses. When a proper analysis is conducted, the conclusion may be that possible bad outcomes overshadow potential benefits. In this case, prudent behavior should be rewarded. The risk for its own sake should never be valued above measured consideration of every possible outcome.

Keep Company Goals in Mind When Assessing Risks

As stated earlier, every action contains an inherent risk. Many times, opportunities for growth are also risky endeavors. When performing a risk assessment, it’s essential to keep the organization overarching goals in mind.

Managers and employees should ask themselves how likely it is that a given action will benefit the company, and to what extent potential risks are trumped by greater upside potential. This can help prevent overzealous risk restrictions that deter employees from engaging risks that may help the company reach its objectives.

Identify Risks as Early as Possible and Monitor for Changes

Risk management is an attempt to foresee future events and prepare for them to mitigate bad outcomes. The sooner your staff engages in this process, the more time they’ll have to alter plans and timelines.

The irony is that the earlier this process is engaged, the less accurate it will be, simply because the events its predicting are further out in the future. More can change between prediction and resolution. Therefore it’s critical that risks are monitored and reevaluated periodically as situations unfold.

If a customer is delinquent on a bill for more than 90 days even after repeated follow-ups by your staff, transfer this account to a collection agency. The older an account gets, the harder it becomes to recover money from it. Too many accounts receivable is a red flag for any organization that can restrict the cash flow.

Expect Full Transparency About Risks From Every Level of the Company

Senior management may sometimes feel it’s prudent to withhold knowledge of potential risks in order to prevent panic. However, in the long run, this harms positive risk management cultures, because middle management and their direct reports will model behaviors exhibited by company leadership. Instead, engaging full transparency regarding risks at all levels helps promote that behavior company-wide.

Secondarily, when risks are withheld, employees are operating with incomplete information. They may take actions that they wouldn’t otherwise if they knew the true position of the company. As a result, cloaked risks breed other risks, a situation that must be avoided.

Risk management is only as strong as its weakest link. Effective policies require full compliance, from every participant, at all times. If you create a culture that values this basic premise, you’ll be well on your way to effective risk management.

ADP Workforce and Square Payroll are both HR management tools that wrap several functions into a single software package. Both are highly-rated with large, established userbases, and they do more or less the same thing.

However, while they share much of the same functionality, that doesn’t mean that each is right for every business. Depending on how features are implemented, the size of an organization and its software budget, one package may be a better fit than the other.

This article will compare their relative merits to help you determine which is right for you.

Features

Each package supports many of the same functions, but these are implemented differently to cater to their intended market.

Square Payroll

Square Payroll is designed for small businesses, those with less than 50 employees. As a result, it isn’t quite as robust as Workforce. Implementations are simplified to speed workflows for smaller operations. This can be a boon for small companies that don’t need access to some of Workforce’s extended options.

Users will find all of the functionality they need to run successful HR departments. As the name suggests, Payroll makes payroll easy to process. A streamlined interface makes entering data and updating fields a breeze. Payrolls can be run on desktop machines or mobile devices.

Because the package integrates with every other Square tool, hours can be imported instantly from the Square POS or Team app. QuickBooks Online and other third-party integrations are also available.

Payroll taxes are generated automatically and filed electronically from within the software. The package also allows worker’s comp insurance to be synced with payroll on a pay-as-you-go basis. In fact, most employee benefits, like retirement and healthcare, will sync automatically.

The only real caveat is that large enterprises may find Payroll’s offerings to be a bit meager for their needs. ADP Workforce could be the better choice for them.

ADP Workforce

Workforce is built with larger organizations in mind. It’s built to scale well, providing convenient HR management to companies of any size.

You’ll find all of the core features available in Payroll, including payroll and tax compliance. Both are cloud-based, meaning your data is accessible wherever you are. Workforce also offers automated timekeeping, attendance tracking, and scheduling. Reports are easier to generate within Workforce, and are generally more robust.

The software supports custom workflows and self-service functions that give employees access to critical HR data from a convenient web portal. Square Payroll also allows users to input their information, but Workforce offers speed enhancements that Payroll doesn’t.

The software integrates with a wider set of third-party products and embeds access to ZipRecruiter, making it easier to fill positions quickly. HR professionals can also leverage the software to create pay-for-performance opportunities within the organization and track employee progress toward specific goals.

In general, more options are available within Workforce, and configurations run deeper, allowing a more comprehensive range of businesses to design systems that work for them.

Plans

Workforce offers four packages, scaled to meet the needs of various-sized organizations.

Payroll Essentials is perfect for businesses that only want access to payroll and tax components. The add-ons Workforce Management and HR Assist are also included.

HR Plus adds enhanced HR tools, onboarding functions, and robust digital record keeping options. Two other add-ons, Benefits Administration and Enhanced Analytics are also included.

Hiring Advantage is designed for companies interested in improving their recruitment processes to help attract top talent. Users will have access to ZipRecuiter and thousands of other job boards, along with advanced onboarding tools.

Performance Plus is the most expensive package, intended for enterprise-level organizations that need to manage high-performing teams. A full suite of performance and compensation management tools are added to provide the most powerful solution ADP offers.

Square Payroll’s plans are significantly simpler. They only offer two, and the difference comes down to who you’re looking to pay.

Their standard plan includes all the functionality you’ll need to pay employees and contractors — that is to say, all the functionality the software offers. The second plan strips out features that are specific to employees, and provides a streamlined experience for companies that only need to pay contractors.

Pricing

This is one area where Payroll has a leg up. Square offers a simple, upfront payment scheme that’s consistent from customer to customer.

For their standard plan you’ll pay a $29 monthly fee and an additional $5 per month for every person on your payroll. If you only need contractor support, the monthly fee is removed. You’ll pay $5 per month for each contractor you pay.

There’s no commitment with either plan, and you can cancel at any time.

Pricing for Workforce isn’t standardized, and depends on a number of factors. Companies interested in purchasing one of their four plans must contact the company to get individualized pricing.

So which is right for you? If you’re a small company or work exclusively with contractors, Square Payroll is probably your best option. However, if you need a more full-featured HR tool, or if you’re a large company, Workforce may be the better option.

Official figures worldwide show that the number of businesses starting up is constantly rising. More and more people are turning to entrepreneurship, and business chiefs are predicting that small businesses are going to play a vital role in the future economy. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA) there are 30.7 million small businesses in the U.S. which account for 99.9 percent of all U.S. businesses.

There has been an enormous upheaval in the way we work in recent years, and this has sparked a surge of innovation in the technology sector to support the needs of new businesses, as the sector finds opportunities to develop new tools and services and expand their markets for existing products.

So, what are these technology tools that are changing the small business sector?

Tools for Market Research

One of the first steps in small business creation is conducting market research. Any business that wants to have an impact, whether a medical clinic, a small retail store or even a debt collection agency, will need to deeply understand their industry to find precisely who their market is. New software tools are constantly being developed to collect market research data, which in turn has led to a massive sophistication in tools to analyze this data. This market can be quite overwhelming for someone who has little expertise in software, so many tech companies have developed user-friendly tools at a range of prices that do not require much programming experience, if any.

Oracle is one of the most popular data analytics platforms – it is a cloud-based tool that runs on its proprietary database. This is ideal for those looking for a tool to take care of the analysis work, but such convenience has a high cost – prices do not start below $2,000. Other high-performance tools include Apache Spark, RapidMiner and SAS Visual Text Analysis – but the use of these tools requires some digital skills, and some carry a hefty price tag.

For those not looking to invest big money and who need to keep things simple, Google proposes its data analysis tool for free – over half of businesses use Google Analytics (GA) for their market research. Feedback shows that businesses choosing GA appreciate the platform’s user-friendly interface and rate it as a powerful tool that provides valuable insights about how customers interact with their business. Trade associations, industry groups and agencies, university publications and libraries or government websites offer a wealth of free statistical data from reliable, real-time or recent sources.

Tools for Online Marketing

Social media sites have truly transformed the market research landscape. For anyone wishing to reach out to potential clients, the fact that 77 percent of U.S. Americans have a social media profile cannot be ignored. Many businesses will need an online presence through social media if they want to connect with individual clients today, either as readers of content or participants in a public discussion thread or private chat. However, while these platforms allow businesses to reach large audiences, they can require a lot of time and energy to maintain, and any social media marketing campaign, however carefully cultivated, usually takes some time to deliver results.

Another area of essential online presence for businesses is owning a compelling, useful website. This is an area of software that rapidly expanded in recent years, where website tools have been created for a wide array of user skills and price tags. While you can outsource the task of designing and creating a website to a professional, some smaller businesses choose to take on the task themselves, and many tools are designed to be, above all, user-friendly. Ghost.org and Publii have become go-to options for many entrepreneurs who want static sites to showcase compelling content, such as blogs, and product offerings.

Google Web Designer is one of the most popular tools for creating flashy online advertisements and other marketing materials. It is free to download and users rate it as ‘easy to navigate and use’. Users looking for no-code design tools also go to Adobe XD, which allows the collaborative design of intuitive web pages and apps, but after a free starter plan it requires investment, with pricing starting at $9.99 per month.

For businesses that want to offer online shopping, website building tools like Weebly or Squarespace come highly recommended to create user-friendly, yet stylishly designed, drag-and-drop websites. These platforms often offer free trials for starters, but plans can quickly move up from approximately $10 per month.

Online Payment Solutions have also developed rapidly in recent years, and while PayPal remains the number one tool, some competitors have broken into the market by offering reduced fee rates, and faster transaction speeds. One rapidly expanding platform is Apple Pay, which uses advanced touch ID confirmation technology.

Tools for Financial Tracking

Any business owner looking to run a successful and profitable enterprise needs to plan their finances from the very beginning. This is easier in recent years, given current financial tracking tools. Small business accounting software platforms that come recommended are Sage and QuickBooks. Sage is an all-in-one solution that integrates with Microsoft software, offering a wide array of financial tools. Even though it is quite comprehensive it’s also a small and light desktop accounting application. On the downside, it does not yet feature a mobile app solution.

QuickBooks is rated on many sites as a popular choice for those looking for a more user-friendly interface, but it is also quite a costly tool that would require some investment. Keeping on top of finances can seem daunting at the beginning of any start-up enterprise, and very often even just the basic bookkeeping and tracking income and expenses already requires much time and effort —but efficiently and accurately tackling that work is necessary to have the data to analyze and answer high-level questions about profit, budget predictions, and the ability to expand and grow. Then there are free services like Nexacollect that help you to connect with a good collection agency to recover from your past-due invoices and improve cash flow.

Tools for Database Solutions

Small businesses and startups often don’t have the technical and financial means to manage database solutions. The good news is that they don’t have to.

Cloud-based databases offer a low-cost entry point. A small company entering the market can get a database and start storing their application data in it for the price of a lunch per month. Yes, you can get a database for less than $10 a month, with no strings attached!

Nowadays, businesses don’t need to worry about database servers. Backups, software updates, and security patches are all taken care of. Even with clients in Europe, America and Asia, a business benefits from geo-replication which keeps data close to its clients. That results in the application response time not being affected by distance and the laws of physics.

Adding database features obviously starts affecting that monthly payment, but businesses only pay if they need them. What’s more, they can manage all that via user-friendly web portals. No coding or scripting is required to manage access, users, or the creation and deletion of databases from their browser.

One of the best features of cloud-based applications is that small-companies don’t have to hire a database developer who knows the SQL database language. NoSQL databases, such as Google CloudFirestore, offer schema-free, scalable, document-centric models that are ideal for any application.

Regardless of whether you own a pet store, a sandwich shop or a smart building technology firm, NoSQL databases offer flexible and high-performance database models to cater your needs.

Escaping reliance on spreadsheets is easy with no-code app-building tools like Tadabase and Appy Pie. A business can quickly create forms, tables, and other UI designs customized to its needs, where employees or customers enter data in a pleasant, user-friendly way, and the validated data goes directly into an organized database.

Finally, with the advent of personal robot assistants (“bots), there is increased anticipation of how far the office bot assistant will take over tasks normally reserved for human assistants. There are many experiments underway to develop basic and complex assistants. One such project built a smart office assistant to deliver food and documents to employees, map and navigate the office and even have a chatting interface. The price tag for these is currently way too high but the aim is to develop more efficient and less expensive bots in the near future.

Technology is now intricately linked to any modern business development. Anyone looking to start their small business in 2020/21 will without a doubt search for what technology tools and software will most help them along the way.

Theodore Roosevelt once said: “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing”.

Making decisions is essential in everyday life and the business world, and we can learn from those who have done it better. Good strategic thinkers tend to be not only good analysts but to be able to maintain a critical and fair attitude about their goals and the elements or factors needed to achieve them.

In business, one of the most effective ways to structure the decision-making process is called a SWOT analysis. It combines micro and macro factors to guide the company’s leadership into strategic planning and action based on a realistic, more precise understanding of the company’s current position rather than a gut feeling or a disorganized, superficial approximation.

The components of a SWOT analysis are: Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), and Threats (T).

This analysis is used with a specific goal or project in mind, and is appropriate across industries, for all kinds of business ventures. A business owner with a good understanding of its principles can use the simplest model of a SWOT analysis, which is essentially a list of pros and cons, weaknesses and strengths, opportunities and threats. The result is a conclusion that will influence a future decision.

Strengths and weaknesses are micro-factors of the analysis because they depend on the micro environment of a business, its internal environment.

Opportunities and threats are macro-factors because they depend on the external environment: favorable conditions in the marketplace (opportunities) or unfavorable conditions (threats).

The table below shows some examples of each of these categories.

Strengths: ·       Company culture ·       Market share ·       Staff (skills, experience, performance) ·       Cash flow (high AR turnover ratio) ·       Brand strength ·       Customer base (demographics, loyalty, purchasing power)

Weaknesses look at the flip side: ·       Limitations in company culture don’t allow for growth and innovation ·       Low/precarious market share ·       Untrained, demotivated, overworked staff or bad management ·       Low cash flow (low AR turnover ratio) ·       Weak brand (low recognition and consumer loyalty) ·       Limited number of new customer acquisition ·       Obsolete inventory/services

Opportunities: ·       Finding new markets ·       Revitalizing the brand through marketing ·       Using new technology ·       Offering extras to your clients ·       Deregulation ·       Globalization ·       E-commerce

Threats: ·       New competition ·       Decrease in market share ·       Customers using different products ·       Regulations (such as licensing) ·       E-commerce and globalization ·       Socio-cultural perceptions ·       Insurance requirements (health care, auto makers, etc)

The components of SWOT interrelate in a network of beneficial dependencies and relational risks. For example, when is a threat disguised as an opportunity because your company’s main weakness will prevent you from taking advantage of it? When could taking an opportunity even damage some of your company’s strengths, such as its stability or loyal customer base?

The context within which you operate on a macro level often determines your micro-level status: the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Social, economic, political and legal factors influence not only your perceptions of the four components of SWOT but how others externally assess your company for those same factors. A bank may analyze the opportunities you’re not taking advantage of or that you missed (such as a cancelled merger) or your reactions to an economic downturn, and then decide whether to extend you a loan or not.

At any given time, the focus must be on balancing strengths and weaknesses, on optimizing the former and minimizing the latter. Actions such as fulfilling your KPIs, ensuring your staff recognizes and is prepared to respond to risk, boosting competencies, and making changes based on knowledge and skill, will ripple further, to enhance your opportunities, reduce limitations, and help you cope with threats.

The analysis of any one combination of these 4 elements can apply to virtually any situation, even in our personal lives. When you’re already weakened by an event and a new threat appears, your strategy should be of survival. Introduce a strength, and you may acquire enough leverage to make adjustments that may garner some benefits in the long run.

Flexibility is a necessary skill, along with clear, critical thinking. If your competitor changes its operations by introducing a new product, you can do a SWOT analysis to see what gives you or them a competitive edge. Just because they have a new product doesn’t mean they’ll be successful. Your analysis may conclude that, given all their known threats and weaknesses, this change will be detrimental to their business. At that point, you may decide to come up with a better or complementary product yourself, which will fill the gap left by their failing product in the future.

One of the best ways to conduct a comprehensive, informed SWOT analysis is to ask for feedback and honest opinions from staff and clients. A medical practice that receives constant complaints about its scheduling practices or public staff confrontations should take them very seriously. They may signal not only a clinical team whose members can’t get along and work efficiently, but failing management or internal oversight, customer dissatisfaction, weakening brand, low patient loyalty, all of which are not only weaknesses but threats as well. In that case, measures must be taken immediately, and a monitoring process set up to detect and prevent such things from happening in the future.

Staff feedback is also important. It may point out weaknesses and threats, or open the door to new opportunities. It may inadvertently identify contributors and key players in all of these categories. For instance, many good employees are able to detect inefficient processes and might have ideas to improve the workflow, increase receivables, acquire new clients or become more compliant with regulations. Your company could conduct an anonymous survey every few months, which would allow staff to express their opinions about how the company is doing and the direction it’s going.

Some companies put themselves through SWOT tests. They imagine different scenarios and determine if they have the capability to overcome tough situations or to recognize a competitive advantage. What will it cost your company to overcome a threat? Is it capable of improvising? Would it have the support it needs from investors and other business partners?

A long time ago, Sophocles wrote: ‘I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect’. Planning and organizing should not be actions we wish we had taken in hindsight. The tools are at our fingertips, to help us reflect, learn, apply old and new tactics, and compete at our highest possible level while moving forward and growing.