Strategic planning is a crucial process that often gets overlooked in small businesses, due to a lack of understanding about the process, and a lack of resources available to dedicate to planning. However, a strategic plan can be the difference between staying afloat and being a true success.
benefits
Your clients or customers are, in many ways, the lifeblood of your business. After all, without your paying customers, your business simply wouldn’t survive in the long run, no matter how amazing the products or services you offer are.
According to a recent study, employee engagement across the workforce is at a historic low. Many employees cite disengagement with the work they are tasked to perform each day, due to a variety of underlying causes. It could be they are not content with their current job position, or that they do not feel completely connected with the employer on a broader scale. Regardless of the root cause, employers and their HR departments are recognising the pressing need to improve employee engagement – and fast.
So you have invested time, money and energy into creating the perfect product that you think can be flying off shelves. Now you have to get your product on the shelves to get your business started. A small business that mainly produces and develops products needs a platform to sell them on. You may consider selling your products online, whether it’s on your own website or other sites such as Etsy or Amazon. However, if you want to opt for the more traditional route, you will need to approach high street retailers to get that satisfaction of seeing your product on a store shelf.
The positive effect of having an online presence and being on multiple different social media platforms cannot be denied. Yet, a majority of SME’s are not taking the advantage of using social media to drive sales for their small businesses. Social media is a cost-effective way of effectively marketing your business, and the presence online is an absolute must in the present day.
Outsourcing is a vital part of the contemporary business model – more and more serious companies are turning to hiring remote workers each day. Whether you’re in need of a temporary employee, or you’re looking for serious talent to add to your team permanently, remote employment is the way to go.
One of the biggest recruitment challenges faced by businesses is a lack of applications. In a recent survey conducted by Forde HR Cloud, 23% of SMEs revealed that this is their main recruitment issue.
From January 2013, new rules come into force which will make Child Benefit means-tested for the first time. The controversial changes mean than a couple earning £50,000 each could keep the benefit, but a couple with one single earner on £60,000 would lose the benefit entirely.
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