As the end of year draws closer, it brings a great opportunity for small business owners to take time to reflect and plan for the year ahead. The Westpac Small Business Report in collaboration with Deloitte found that small businesses have grown modestly in revenue terms relative to this time last year. While some are doing fairly well, many are also only just scraping by with less than one in six experiencing strong income growth over the past year.
So how can small businesses improve performance? Here are three tips to help drive revenue going into the New Year.
1: Make time for you and your business– being in your best health mentally, physically and emotionally will help your business thrive, particularly when it comes to making decisions and innovating. Use the New Year as an opportunity to take a step back to focus on the business rather than being in the business. By evaluating your strategy and the future of your business, you may discover new sources of revenue growth through competition, new channels, or innovation. If you have a banker or accountant, organise a meeting and use them to help you develop a plan for next year.
2: Customer centricity is key to success– in this digital age, the key aspect of business success, is not the technology that disrupts industries, but the fact that the technology solves a customer problem. Do you know what, when and why your customers purchase your product or service? Make time to think about what technologies can assist you to build customer experiences, beyond just a product.
Technologies like digital invoicing can drive efficiencies and reduce a significant amount of work, boost productivity, and give back precious time that can be spent on growing and running your business. Solutions like Westpac’s Biz Invoice which enables users to send and manage invoices directly through their online banking is an example of using technology to solve a customer problem.
3: Every business is a data business – do you know what data you have? The questions you ask of the data are as important as the data itself. Ensure you understand your data and are asking the right questions to gain real insights such as monitoring sales analytics. Use the new year to analyse data from the previous year to understand where new opportunities exist so you can provide the right products and services, improve your customer’s experience and boost revenue.
DISCLAIMER: This information is general in nature and should not be relied upon for personal financial use
About the author
Ganesh Chandrasekkar, General Manager, Westpac Small Business Banking
