Are your trading terms and conditions still fit for purpose?
When was the last time you considered your terms of business? In a fast changing inter-connected international world, are you confident your terms with your suppliers and customers are keeping pace with change and potential change in 2025?
Do I understand the risks and threats to my business?
Whilst your terms of business can help mitigate some of the risks and threats your business faces, are you still confident you understand those risks and threats? Change is the one true constant and 2025 has already started off with plenty of change. It is important that you assess the main existential and trading risks your business currently faces and is likely to face this year. Are there regulatory changes coming down the line that you need to prepare for now? What will the impact be of export and import tariffs? Which other costs are likely to rise this year that are likely to have a significant impact on your margin or cashflow? Aim to pinpoint the ones that matter to you and consider how you can protect against or mitigate those risks.
Do I have the right stakeholder arrangements?
As well as having a clear understanding of the contractual arrangements with your customers and suppliers, do you still have the right stakeholder arrangements? Are the terms of your articles of association and any shareholder agreements still relevant? All too often as businesses grow and stakeholders change, you can find that the documents that deal with the key internal relationships are no longer relevant and can in fact be detrimental. Identifying this in advance can save a lot of time, money and stress later and actually prevent potential issues arising.
Do you own what you think you own?
Intellectual property is a key asset for many businesses. Do you understand the intellectual property that you own? Are you protecting the right intellectual property in the right markets? Are you taking the right preparatory steps to protect the intellectual property that you are hoping to, or are likely to, create in 2025?
Are you investing wisely in your team?
Whilst intellectual property is a key asset for many businesses, for all businesses, your team is likely to be your most valuable asset. To leverage this asset you need to support, reward and invest in your people. Training your team to adapt to the evolving business environment is essential despite the initial costs. The long-term benefits, including enhanced business performance and boosted employee morale, far outweigh these expenses. However, it's also critical to evaluate team performance honestly. Making difficult decisions to part ways with underperforming staff can streamline team efficiency and realign focus towards achieving your business objectives.
How scalable is your business?
If you are looking to grow your business in 2025, how scalable is your business? Which areas need additional resource to scale? How easy will it be to obtain those resources in 2025? Understanding this resource gap can help to build out your growth roadmap.
Is your business strategy still the right one?
Taking a step back out of the trees to look at the wood itself is a useful exercise at the start of the year. Is your underlying overall strategy still the right one? Do the changes of the last few years and the likely continuing change this year mean that you need to navigate a different path and focus on a different strategy or different market?
Are you executing your strategy properly?
As well as considering strategic goals, now is also the time to focus on execution. An adequate strategy that's well-executed is likely to outperform a superior strategy that's poorly implemented. To ensure success, critically assess your resources, processes, and team capabilities. This will help you execute your strategy with the precision needed to achieve your business objectives.
Are there new opportunities now available to your business?
Whilst change will bring new threats and risks, it can also bring new opportunities. It is important therefore to look out for those opportunities and consider how they can take your business forward. For example, 1st April sees the significant reforms from the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Act 2023 coming into force which means many businesses who were previously unable to raise finance might now be in a position to raise that finance. Keeping an eye out for these legal, regulatory and other changes which might present fresh opportunities should be an important task for 2025.
Am I using Artificial Intelligence wisely?
The legal impact of AI use is still being explored but there are clear implications across employment law and data protection and privacy law, to name a few. Are your employees disclosing sensitive business information in their use of AI? AI can be a powerful tool in the success and growth of your business but understanding how to leverage it properly and mitigate risks is key.
This article was first published in Business Insider—read more here.
