Creating an annual strategy is an important step for businesses, as it provides a roadmap for achieving their goals and objectives to ensure their long-term success.
A well-crafted strategy provides a clear understanding of the business’s strengths and weaknesses, market trends, and customer behavior, which inform decision-making and guide resource allocation.
Here are some key elements of an effective strategy, so you can set your organization up for success in 2023.
Audit the Previous Year
Conducting a post-mortem review or audit of the previous year is an important step in creating an annual business strategy — and one that often gets overlooked. However, you can’t make data-driven decisions about the future without taking a closer look at what worked and didn’t in the past.
Take some time to identify successes and failures, providing opportunities for everyone to contribute their learnings. Understand internal performance challenges and wins, but consider external contributors as well.
Use the information you gather during the post-mortem review to refine your strategy for the coming year. This could involve adjusting your goals, allocating financial resources differently, or changing your approach to certain initiatives.
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Explore the Customer Journey
Revisiting the customer journey is another integral step in developing an improvement-oriented strategy for 2023.
The customer journey refers to the series of interactions and experiences that a customer has with your business, from awareness to post-purchase. By revisiting this journey, you can identify areas where you create a better customer experience.
Start by mapping the journey through the sales funnel, looking for bottlenecks, gaps, and friction points. Use data from several sources, such as customer surveys, website analytics, and customer service records, to get a better understanding of the customer experience.
Once you have a better picture of the overall customer journey, use your learnings when shaping marketing and financial goals for the year.
Conduct an Updated Market Analysis
Never underestimate the value of a simple SWOT analysis to kick off your annual planning. A lot can change in the marketplace over the course of a year — the last few years have been a prime example!
Take the time to understand the competitive landscape and explore external factors that may impact your business. It’s also helpful to identify gaps in the market that your business isn’t already exploring. New opportunities promise new revenue potential.
Set Realistic Yet Challenging Goals
Goals and objectives are what most people dive into when creating an annual strategy. Yet, investing time in the focal points above will help substantiate your goals and make them more realistic.
Setting business goals should be realistic yet challenging. All too often, goals are set by leadership without a deep understanding of baselines and feasibility. When in doubt, consult with subject matter experts before setting goals.
The goals should also be quantifiable. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can track throughout the year. Create milestones to help track progress, breaking the year into quarters and monthly reviews as needed. Keep in mind these metrics should reflect the seasonality of your business — some months will have higher benchmarks than others.
Finally, work to break the goals down into smaller actions that relate to daily work. This process helps the team stay committed to the objectives and identifies whether any workflow changes are required.
Develop Updated Financials
This step will likely overlap with the steps above; they can be completed concurrently.
Revisiting your financial situation from years previous and setting realistic expectations, and implementing smart resource management strategies are essential for success. This aspect of annual strategizing is crucial for 2023, with inflation and the recession impacting B2B customers’ budgets and consumers’ disposable income. Start using some reliable B2B Payment solutions to properly account for various business transactions.
Establish a budget, determining how much money you have available to allocate to your initiatives. Looking at previous expenses and determining which are necessary and which are eating into your bottom line is recommended.
Next, take a high-level overview of your cash flow. You should regularly review your cash flow to make sure you have sufficient money to cover expenses and take advantage of opportunities. Taking a high-level overview can help you get perspective and address pain points.
Then, consider revenue diversification strategies. This step ties into exploring the market opportunity and addressing growth-oriented goals.
Plan for Contingencies
Planning for contingencies also falls under the financial management umbrella. However, this step is worthy of individual attention as it protects your business during tumultuous periods (which 2023 promises to be).
Identify potential risks that your business may face in the coming years — natural disasters, supply chain disruptions, and economic downturns are a few overarching issues to be aware of. Then, evaluate the potential impact of each risk and prioritize them based on the level of threat they pose to your operations.
Develop contingency plans for every scenario. How can you mitigate these risks? How would you respond to these risks if they occurred? Finally, identify and allocate the necessary resources required for risk management.
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Final Thoughts
Developing an annual strategy is a must for modern businesses. By taking the time to look back, you can develop a well-rounded strategy to address whatever the future may hold.