Just another year or “the year”?
12th July 2016
Is it “business as usual” in your firm or is this the year that you want “to make it happen” – be that changes/improvements in your firm, a change in your lifestyle or even perhaps a decision to start to plan for an eventual sale?
My point is that businesses are far more likely to succeed if they have a plan with accompanying actions that can be monitored and where progress is periodically measured. Yet, perhaps only 20% of intermediary firms do have a Business Plan let alone a Strategic Plan and an even smaller percentage regularly take time to formally review their progress against the objectives that they have set.
Business/Strategic Plans don’t need to be – and indeed shouldn’t be – “War and Peace” but rather appropriate for the needs of the business and the shareholders or partners.
The new Capital Adequacy Rules have started to take effect from 30th June 2016 and we now have Brexit alongside the continuing debate about how best to provide advice to different client segments and the part that technology has to play. “Robo” and “cyborg” are being advanced as possible solutions but in reality the real issue for many intermediary firms is what sort of business they want to be running and what they want to happen to it when they reach the point that they are ready to retire.
Isn’t it worth spending time planning what you want to happen or if you a plan in place already, reviewing it?