Key Priorities For FY 23/24
As the financial year draws to a close, it’s time for businesses to focus on preparing for the end of financial year (EOFY) and more significantly, preparing for the year ahead.
I’ve compiled some key priorities for businesses to focus on for the next financial year, and a checklist that can help you ensure you’re prepared for the end of the year.
As you read through these key priorities that businesses should focus on for next year, I encourage you to rate yourselves on how you think you’ll do in each of them:
Scenario Planning Risk Management: Especially in evolving environments, tracking the evolving market and economic conditions and ensuring there are sufficient mitigation strategies, is critical for the performance of the business. It’s also important to focus on addressing increasing technology risks.
Sustainable Growth and Expansion: The key word here is ‘sustainable’. Businesses need to ensure they are building a foundation that can sustain continued growth – a holistic and strategic platform pillared by the right people, processes, vendors, clients, and strategy.
Maintaining Financial Discipline: Maintaining financial discipline is a vital trait that companies must cultivate to achieve lasting success and enable them to weather economic uncertainties, seize growth opportunities, and build a solid foundation for long-term prosperity, ensuring their sustainability and competitiveness in a dynamic business landscape.
Adapting and Excelling at Lead Generation and Sales: You can’t be in business if you’re not ‘being in sales’. With markets and consumers evolving, it’s critical for companies to ensure they are investing in continually improving and oiling the sales machine of the company, and taking a holistic approach by establishing effective processes, upskilling and training, reviewing and having the right tools.
Customer Experience Enhancement: Businesses need to understand that consumers who buy from you also likely buy groceries from the local grocer or visit a hairdresser or buy from an electronics store etc so the customer expectations are often also influenced by experiences outside of the industry so with major businesses continually improving their CX and UX, it’s important for all businesses to ensure they are not perceived the not have that focus or have a significant gap.
Continued Digital Transformation: Embracing AI and digital technologies and leveraging them to transform business processes is a priority for organizations especially with major advancements in AI recently. Companies shouldn’t shy away or fear new technology especially AI, but educate themselves, learn and plan to integrate these tools to add greater value.
Talent Management and Development: In most cases, companies need to understand that they are not an accounting business or an insurance business for example, but they are a people business that specialises in those areas. So having the best functional structure enables a business to achieve its goals more effectively and efficiently, scale, and grow sustainably.
Operational Efficiency: Today’s game is very much an efficiency game and the most efficiently effective organisations win. Optimizing internal structures, processes and systems must be a priority for businesses. Ensure you are always reviewing and continuing improve and streamline workflows, reducing costs, improving supply chain management, and enhancing overall operational efficiency.
Build Vendors and External Team: With so many aspects to be experts in, successful businesses build strong external teams that support their business. Having trusted advisors help businesses to stay on top of trends, apply best practice and enable strong supply relationships.
Innovation and R&D: Again, with how quickly things are changing, companies need to stay ahead of the curve to remain competitive and relevant. Hence it’s critical to invest in research and development activities to drive innovation – exploring new technologies, investing in product/service improvements, and fostering a culture of creativity and experimentation.
How did you go? I’d love to hear some of your thoughts – where you could do better, if there are other key priorities that you’d focus on… shoot me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn!