Now is the best time to review your business. It may feel like a weight, but it may transform your success and ensure you are on the right path.

Reviewing the business plan is an essential activity for all businesses, whatever stage they're at. It can be especially useful during a time of business growth, when of course, you are feeling at your most stretched. The review should give you a clear picture of how well your business is performing and it will help you to check if you are responding to the correct market or if you are heading in a new direction to the one you set out on (there may be good reasons for any changes, but you do need to understand them and the implications for your business).   

Just as you have to review and refresh your product range regularly to meet the changing tastes of customers, you should also continually reassess the business climate that you're operating in and adjust to remain profitable. 

Managing a retail business is obviously more than a nine-to-five job and it is not easy to find the time.   However, every business has access to a local Business Link adviser. They can help you to take a step back and objectively review your performance, draw up an action plan to achieve your goals, and point you in the direction of relevant sources of expertise and support, from the private, public and voluntary sectors.   You  can also access a wealth of free information and guidance at www.businesslink.gov.uk. 

The process of business planning involves defining your business objectives, establishing where you are now and identifying the path you need to be on to get you where you want to be.   Always begin with asking a succession of questions. You can break these down into ‘sets' of questions to make them more manageable.

What direction are you heading in?

To answer this you need to look at where you are now, where you want to be over the next three to five years and how you intend to get there.

What are your markets now and in the future?

Consider whether you specialise in certain products, or whether you're targeting a clearly defined demographic group?   Is the market for those products or that demographic group changing or likely to  change?   What does the business need to do in order to be successful in those markets?   

How do you gain market advantage?

How can the business perform better than the competition in your chosen markets? Not an easy one to deal with, but brainstorm and put everything that occurs to you down in note form to begin with.

What resources do you require to succeed?

What skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence and facilities do you need to compete? Have these changed since you started? Staff issues come under this set of questions.

What business environment are you competing in?

What external factors may affect the business' ability to compete? Has the credit crunch, for example, affected you and your competitors?   New parents will still need to kit out the nursery but may have less money with which to buy the same products. 

How are you measuring success?

Remember, measures of performance may change as your business matures.

It's helpful to involve others in this process, who can act as a useful sounding board. You could call upon your fellow directors and senior staff, Business Link or other trusted professional advisers, all of whom can help to make your business review objective.

So, don't lose any more time waiting for the ‘best' time to take a step back and review your business. Now is the best time. Assessing your business will require change and hard work whenever you decide to do it, so be proactive and make it top of your list of things to do.

Russel McGrath

Tel Business Link: 0845 600 9 006

E mail: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/

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