4 Steps for 2019 Business Planning

The new year is already here and it’s a perfect time to review your business and set up a plan for the upcoming 12 months. A successful business plan is important because it outlines the road that a company should take to provide stable growth.

Here are four helpful steps for successful 2019 business planning.

1. SWOT analysis

Start with SWOT analysis: Determine the Strengths and Weaknesses that your company has, as well as Opportunities and Threats existing in the environment. This will enable you to identify where your business is in comparison to the strategic plan.

Knowing what competitive, political and economic factors may influence your business, what strengths it has on which to build a future plan and what weaknesses should be abolished will arm you with the knowledge for great new year business planning.

To quickly draw a beautiful and informative SWOT diagram, use online strategic analysis tools such as Visual Paradigm.

2. Goal setting

Goals are the cornerstone of new year business planning: clearly define what you want to reach in the upcoming year. In order to understand where you want to go, it’s important to know where you are now.

First, analyze the positioning of your business in the market and its performance in the past 12 months: what successes it has recorded and what gaps still exist; how well it has met the goals set for the year; how it performed financially; and more.

Knowing all of these will give you a strategically important starting point to identify the next set of goals.

Then set SMART goals and objectives, which means they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

For example, instead of saying that you want to increase the sales level in the next year, you should define the time period and the amount of revenue you expect to reach.

Remember, when setting goals you should always keep in mind your business vision and mission: why did you start your business and what you want to accomplish. It will help to set goals that keep your business on the right track.

3. Brainstorming for strategy

Once you have determined where you want to go, it’s time to develop a set of tactics to get there. To establish an effective and rich strategy, you should organize a brainstorming session with employees to hear their ideas. You can conduct a session with all the employees or, if your company is too large, choose some of them.

For an effective brainstorming session, use appropriate online tools such as Swift Polling. It’s an online poll maker that lets employees be fully engaged in the process and send their feedback through web or text with their devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.).

Swift Polling shows the results in real time, so a discussion can be conducted based on all of the feedback.

Have a free trial of this online poll maker and then decide if it is appropriate for your session.

4. Budgeting

Now it’s time to fund your plan.

Create a budget to control your finances, allocate resources where they are needed and meet your objectives so that your business remains profitable and successful. Work out what you are likely to earn and spend in the upcoming 12-month period.

To make it more trackable, be specific and divide your expenses based on time periods (quarterly or even monthly projections) and departments. It will enable you to have a clear financial outlook for the upcoming period.

Follow the steps mentioned above to get out most of your business operations and don’t forget about a contingency plan (an alternative plan B), which is designed to respond to a future event or situation that may happen.