How Will Your Next 10 Years Of Business Go? Here’s How To Plan For Them

THIS YEAR HERALDS in a new decade. Where will your business be by 2030?

If we look back to 2010, a lot has happened. At that point, we were in the middle of a global financial crisis that would lead to the Great Recession. Ten years seems like a lifetime, but as we well know, time travels quickly!

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In order to determine where your business will be heading, it helps to determine how far you’ve come already. Looking back can be a great starting point to looking forward. Asking yourself some good questions will be a pertinent starting point to setting up your next 10 years.

• In which areas was your business successful during the last 10 years?
• What have been your core business strengths of the last 10 years?
• What results have surprised you?
• Which areas did you think you would do better in?
• Which areas did you think you would not do so well in?
• Has your business grown, and if so, by how much?
• What changes in product mix did you see during the 10 years?
• How many years during that period did you achieve your budgeted sales?
• Did your level of staffing grow during that time?
• What was your level of staff retention during that time, as a percentage?

Now, with these questions answered, let’s focus on the future.

• Where do you see your business being in 10 years?
• Do you plan to be in the same location?
• What level of sales would you expect during this period?
• What number of staff do you expect to grow to?
• What products will you be selling and what percentage will they be of your product mix?
• What trends do you think will develop further, and how will you deal with this?

In order to work this out, you will need to look at your reports for information about the success of your business. Data talks facts more than opinion. Within your reports will be micro-trends and macro-trends, micro-trends being variances that will happen over a short period, and macro-trends being the longer-term impact of changes across a wider period of time.

Let’s take one key area: diamond rings.

• Have ring sales grown during the last 10 years?
• Has there been an increase in the volume of ring sales?
• Has there been an increase in the average retail value of rings sold?

Viewing these trends over both the short and long term will be a pointer to what you may achieve moving forward. Conducting this type of exercise across all your major departments will help you determine where your business will be heading in the foreseeable future.