Unless you work at Disneyland, summertime is usually synonymous with a lull in business. Enjoy the respite at this juncture but don’t squander the opportunity for a reassessment and realignment of your goals. A proactive review of your budget, in particular, can help you finish the year on a high.

Evaluate Your Position

A comprehensive annual business plan should be a combination of push and pull factors, using projections of both expenditure and income to assess feasibility. The data of the past seven months will give you an accurate picture of your progress on both fronts.

Whether it involves inflow or outflow, any significant deviation from the forecasts should be a cause for concern (not alarm). With input from your management team, answer these questions:

Assessment Methods and Criteria

  • Is the divergence the result of insufficient or incorrect data, or was the initial assessment method itself fundamentally flawed?
  • How will the lessons learned here be integrated into the following year’s plan?

Liquidity

  • If the miscalculation has left you in the red, what are the implications for liquidity and everyday operations?
  • If the miscalculation means that you have additional resources today, how can they be best utilized/diverted?

Operations

  • If you are behind on progress goals, is there sufficient time to regain lost ground?
  • Will this require additional investments, new hires (temporary or permanent), or a complete change of plans?
  • If you are ahead, is it wise to take your foot off the pedal or is it more prudent to persist, at least for the short term?

Getting Back on Track

More often than not, shortfalls discovered at a mid-year review can be addressed so as not to have a disproportionately large impact by year’s end. These are the main areas on which to focus:

Priorities

Be flexible enough to change priorities when the situation demands. If issues that should have received precedence earlier did not, focus on them now to address the problems you face. This is the time to eliminate all distractions and maintain a laser focus on the tasks and goals that will have the most impact. (See my recent article “Increase Your Productivity with Timeboxing” for more ideas.)

Staff

You may have lost good employees, made some promising hires, or recognized potential in your team. Encourage and promote to keep the momentum going. Conversely, it could be that your people are struggling under their workloads, which can lead to burnout, lower productivity, and even resignations. Consider investing in new hires and training or retraining programs.

Clients

Consumer demand ebbs and flows and, too often nowadays, makes unpredictable swings as well. Keep your ear to the ground and, if your budget permits, adapt your products and/or services to remain relevant. Consider diverting resources to areas which deliver a better ROI.

Technology

The unprecedented rate of technological advances can give agile companies a leg up … while leaving others in the dust. Which are you? Keep abreast of the IT advances in your industry and budget for relevant hardware and software so you can ride the wave instead of being left behind.

Please contact me today if you have any questions about how to plan for a successful end to 2019.