Now that your company has seen in the New Year, stop everything and pause and reflect. January is a very good time for SME owners and business managers to take a moment to pause and reflect on the year they have just experienced. Such self-reflection can lead to a more nuanced and meaningful goal setting for 2020. Let’s find out more about “End-of-Year” SME Assessments?

What Is An “End-of-Year” SME Assessment?

It is a process of self-realization designed to help entrepreneurs “take stock” of the last 12 months and to therein pause for reflection – both in terms of business successes and failures and personal growth. This is a process whereby you can celebrate accomplishments, dissect failures, question process outcomes and evaluate new ideas and concepts – without any judgment.

Furthermore, as the British economy begins its latest stint of unpredictability, SME owners, especially in the Capital, will continue to battle rising rents and growing product/service delivery costs all of which will make the job of “doing business” that much more difficult. By spending a few days evaluating the past year and spearheading innovative thinking on how to tackle the next 12 months, you could help improve the way your business operates.

How To Undertake An “End-of-Year” SME Assessment?

The process is simple. You need to ask yourself some very difficult questions that can help you evaluate how your year has gone. Here are some of the biggest questions you could pose to your company and yourself.

The Five Big Questions

1. What Have I Achieved – Start with a positive yardstick? Evaluate the big moments and take a moment to let that success soak in. Don’t bask, just let it give you a positive vibe. This is about reinforcing positive behaviour.
2. What Have I Failed To Achieve – This is the negative one. No-one really likes to think about failure. But take a moment to think about that failure, let that failure be a part of your future thinking.
3. Why Did My Failures Happen? Explore the reasoning for your business failure? Did the product fail, shop close down or did the website just not work out the way you envisaged? Well, the next question is designed to help you learn resilience. By identifying failures and the reasons behind them you build a defence going forward.
4. What Have I Learnt From My Successes? By evaluating your success, you can then become more adaptable and responsive. This can help you create a successful mindset which will then connect with your wider business narrative.
5. Where Do I See My Company In 12 Months’ Time? This is about understanding where your strengths lie and how these strengths can be deployed in ways that can help shape future success. Take the time to focus on funding opportunities, new markets for growth, potential staff increases or the opposite, maybe now is the right time to remain agile and scale back?

Prestige Business Management can help you undertake such an introspective analysis. Our services, which are subscription-based, can help you keep costs down whilst giving you the right intelligence to make the right business calls. Why not call us today on 0203 773 2927 and let us help you with your “End-of-Year” SME Assessment.