What have you learnt from the business challenges of 2022?

Regular listeners to my Podcast or readers of these blogs will, hopefully, have cottoned onto the fact that I keep stating that Resilience is about “Springing Forward, having paused, reflected, reenergised and learnt from all of your recent experiences.”

Therefore, what have you learnt from 2022…?

There can’t be many business leaders today who are unaware of Benjamin Franklin’s inspirational and motivational words – “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

And whilst constant planning is key to the ongoing success of any business, January can often be the time when much of this planning is done.

Freshly invigorated by the Christmas break, and with a new year ahead, it’s an ideal time to take a step back and focus on the way forward.

However, whilst planning for the months ahead, you must never lose sight of the year which has just gone.

What challenges did the last 12 months bring for your business? And, most importantly, what have you learnt from those challenges?

Obviously, individual businesses will identify their own specific challenges. But, on a general level, I believe it’s fair to say that there were several challenges in 2022 which impacted on the majority of businesses.

These are:

Supply chain disruption

The cause of this is complex.

·       The COVID-19 pandemic has played a large part in this, due to shifts in demands and labour, shortages, which the ongoing impact of Brexit has also contributed to.

·       Rising inflation levels are exacerbating the problem.

·       There’s no doubt that the war in Ukraine has also had an effect.

So, what have you learnt?

·       Should you use multiple suppliers if possible, rather than relying on one single supplier?

Increased costs

·       The natural consequence of inflation is that everything goes up – including general overheads and industry costs, as well as raw materials.

·       Rising energy costs are also playing a big role in making businesses more expensive to run.

So, what have you learnt?

·       What can you do to keep costs down?

·       Do you need your financial records to be more accurate so you can identify areas of overspend?

High interest rates

·       High interest rates make it more expensive to borrow from lenders – creating difficulties for securing funding to expand your business.

·       Higher interest rates also encourage people to save their money, rather than spend it.

So, what have you learnt?

·       Do you need to put business expansion on hold?

·       Do you need to look for alternative sources of funding?

Decreased consumer spending

·       Most people can’t spend as much money on non-essential items as they used to – making it more difficult to gain new customers and retain existing ones.

So, what have you learnt?

·       Do you need to reduce the cost of your product or offer discounts?

·       What incentives do you need to create for existing customers?

Ongoing impact of the pandemic

·       The emergence of the Omicron variant has presented challenges to staffing throughout the year, as well as continuing economic uncertainty.

So, what have you learnt?

·       Do you need to address your staffing levels, and reassess the working environment?

·       Do you need to consider new work patterns – for example letting more staff work remotely?

How do you Learn? Image JeShoots Unsplash

Whilst I’m sure that all the above will give you some serious food for thought, there’s no doubt that it will also create some difficult and challenging decisions.

Many of these decisions will require new ways of working.

And this leads to the whole area of ‘behaviour change,’ which will be the subject of my next series of blogs.

Watch out for what Is behaviour change, how to implement behaviour change in the most effective way, and what are the benefits of behaviour change.

In the meantime, if you need any support or guidance relating to anything discussed in this blog, then please don’t hesitate to contact me via Email: russell@theresiliencecoach.co.uk, or visit www.theresiliencecoach.co.uk.