2023 to-do list for startups and SMEs

INTRODUCTION

As the year 2022 came to a turbulent end globally, 2023 started on the same and/or even higher note – and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of a global recession hitting more than one-third of the world’s economy in 2023 amidst tougher economic times.

In Ghana, the year 2022 was characterized by hyperinflation, a fast-depreciating Ghana Cedis against major trading currencies, high fuel prices, debt exchange programs resulting in “haircuts”, and a high cost of living among others. And to have a prediction of tougher economic times in 2023 than last year is simply a prediction of doom.

The nature and scale of the current economic mismanagement and challenges have not spared anyone – and governments, individuals, and businesses are activating all arsenals in their survival kits to quiet the storm and stay afloat. While no guarantee of the likelihood of success of any strategy can be made, some to-do lists are imperative should businesses, especially Start-ups and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) envisage any chance of staying operational during and beyond 2023.

The purpose of this article is to provide the top 10 to-do lists which can be incorporated into the resilience and growth plans for Startups and SMEs for the year 2023. We contend that should businesses realign their work plans considering the 10 must-do’s, there will be a higher chance of remaining competitive and sustainable beyond the current economic turbulence – as many businesses may not survive 2023.

THE 2023 TOP 10 TO-DO LIST FOR STARTUPS AND SMEs

The arrangement of the discussion of the top 10 to-do list is not in an order of importance or priority. Equally, they may not be applicable to all forms of business operations although their applicability is relevant and representative of the majority of Startups and SMEs in Ghana. As they are prescriptive in nature, we strongly recommend their adoption in line with individual business assessment, strategy, and operational understanding.

More importantly, founders and managers must ensure the full alignment and buy-in of all stakeholders including employees, shareholders, suppliers, customers, etc. into any final work plan that may be informed by these recommendations before implementation.

1. Identify, Understand and Focus on “Pain Points”

You have a business when the solution you are providing either as a product or service is addressing an identifiable problem. So, while the pursuit of your passion is good, your solution must necessarily be addressing some “pain points” for some identifiable group of persons to qualify as a business. Therefore, at every stage of your business, you must intentionally be assessing your attempt to understand and focus on providing solutions to the identified “pain points” – should you miss this, note that your business won’t grow beyond the curve.

Understanding what your customers need and realizing the urgency to innovate solutions can help you refine your product or service to meet their preferences and requirements. A satisfied customer will have a direct impact on your top line – revenues.

While the process of truly understanding customer pain points may be cumbersome and costly, you cannot discount it and just produce any product or provide any service expecting customers to accept and adopt same. No customer is ready to help you satisfy your curiosity unless your product or service meets his or her needs – and in turbulent economic times with less disposable income, people are prioritizing solving their problems at the functional level.

Therefore, in 2023, it is important for entrepreneurs to rededicate their efforts to truly provide solutions that address pain points for customers, and where such solutions have become accepted by customers, efforts must be focused on simplifying the delivery of such solutions in the most convenient and cost-effective manner.

2. Improve Regulatory Compliance Culture

All business forms and operations are permitted by law. By this, the law mandates some general and specific regulatory demands which businesses must comply with to facilitate their operations and existence as legally recognized businesses.

These regulatory demands include business form registrations and compliance with annual filing requirements, registration with other secondary statutory bodies for the payment of tax, pension and other obligations, and licensing and acquisition of permits for operational activities among others.

The mandatory nature of the regulatory demands implies that non-compliance cannot be countenanced should one desire to operate a legal compliance business. To forestall non-compliance, the law has established some far-reaching sanction regimes to deal with non-compliance including business closures, payment of fines, criminal prosecution, etc.

Businesses that take regulatory compliance seriously e.g., the acquisition and renewal of permits and licenses, filing of annual returns, payment of tax and pension obligations, renewal of annual registrations, etc. demonstrate a high level of operational competence and are much more attractive to investors, creditors, and other stakeholders.

Further, regulatory compliance helps businesses in minimizing risks by preventing avoidable events such as closures, blacklisting, etc. from detrimentally affecting their operations.

The benefit of regulatory compliance is unmatched, and businesses must undertake regulatory audits of their operations to understand the full scope of regulatory demands on their operations and institute measures to build a compliance culture with all demands.

While we contend regulatory compliance is expensive, non-compliance is not the alternative – as without being compliant, one cannot be said to have a business. To have a business is to have a compliant business - nothing less.

3. Hire Highly-Skilled Professionals and Promote a Culture of Diversity

We cannot overemphasize the importance of the quality of a company’s workforce to its operational successes or failures. Entrepreneurs do not make the best products or provide the best service simply because of the number of employees they have. It is the quality reflected in the skill, competence, and professionalism of one’s workforce that greatly influence success.

To recruit, train and retain a team of highly skilled workforce is expensive and in difficult economic times such as now, it is more expensive to engage in such unavoidable pursuits as businesses. Nonetheless, the deliberateness required for this is non-negotiable. Every entrepreneur must prioritize the workforce demands of his or her enterprise and ensure only highly skilled and qualified professionals are recruited, supported, and retained to help the business remain competitive in its product or service delivery.

Skill assessments must be conducted, and critical skills and/or gaps identified. Competence and skills should never be rationalized for cost and persons put into roles as a cost-saving measure. Always remember the ultimate benefits must be weighed in terms of performance, outputs, and deliverables, and where rightly assessed, the outturns from the engagement of the right workforce are justified in the long run.

Further, make it a policy to pursue a diverse leadership team which allows for more in-depth insights, higher workforce engagement, and better decision-making through inclusive leadership.

4. Leverage Digital Marketing Tools

It is incumbent on Startups and SMEs to leverage digital marketing and content creation to their advantage. We live in the internet era where companies can afford to promote their products and services online mostly for free. While traditional marketing is associated with high costs, digital marketing is considered a more viable option for small businesses that want to cut down costs.

Various digital marketing tools and platforms exist for use such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Email Marketing, Snapchat, TikTok, and Websites among others.

Start-ups and SMEs can also adopt the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which will allow them to keep their websites ranked top in the search engines for relevant keywords. These relatively free marketing and awareness creation tools and platforms can help promote brand and product/service awareness which may lead to increased sales or patronage.

Further, digital marketing platforms offer a fast and real-time opportunity for addressing customer complaints and concerns and businesses must leverage it to drive customer service, research, competition assessment, and other customer engagement activities such as promotions.

5. Encourage Remote Working Culture

Post the Covid-19 pandemic, the adoption rate for remote working culture has increased significantly and, in most industries, has become the norm rather than the exception. This emerging trend of work culture has enormous benefits for companies and employees when properly assessed and strategically deployed. The 9 am to 5 pm work from a physical office location is shifting to working remotely with clearly agreed deliverables.

Today, businesses can be run in a hybrid form - online and offline. And as technology continues to permeate all aspects of our everyday life coupled with improved internet accessibility, it has become easier for employees to work from home.

Remote working may not only help in improving work-life balance but also has the additional benefit of increasing productivity and innovation by cutting down operating costs since fewer employees are physically present at the office and using office supplies, computers, and work desks. Specifically, remote work eliminates overhead costs like rent expenses, office furnishings, utilities, insurance, supplies, upkeep, and repair — fees that could escalate quickly if not monitored.

Therefore, if your business operation permits, pilot remote working as a hybrid and adopt it full scale to save some operational costs and help your workforce save on the cost of transportation and associated risks of moving to a physical office working day.

6. Practice Outsourcing

In order for a Start-up or SME to stay ahead of the curve, it must think and operate outside the box. One way of doing this is to seriously consider outsourcing part or full business operations to competent 3rd party service providers. Some 3rd party companies have built operational competencies in the production or rendering of services a Start-up or SME is struggling to produce or offer. There is no need mastering in imperfections and owners must start identifying competitive 3rd party service providers and outsource part or a full complement of their production or service offering at agreed fees.

This will allow the businesses to focus on what they can truly deliver exceptionally while others produce or render complementary components of their products or services. Investing in outsourcing helps startups save money, keep projects on track, and smartly manage time. The time and money saved from outsourcing can be better utilized by Startups and SMEs to focus on core activities and ensure the growth and development of their operations.

Activities and tasks such as accounting, payroll management, legal services, and other specific product or service components can be outsourced.

7. Invest in the automation of your operations

Yes, your product may best be delivered through the laborious long hours of manual production processes – and you may be thinking there is no other way to deliver quality.

Kid you not, most production processes have been automated and have been enhanced to deliver quality products in the most efficient and effective manner. Therefore, do not be fixated on the novel engineering process you innovated to produce the first set of your products and be determined to stick to the same as part of your heritage or tradition.

Technological advances are ensuring manual processes are digitized and embedded with the same production procedures to achieve greater results. The advances have led to simplified production processes using fewer humans, reducing the amount of time and effort required to complete a task and reducing operational costs, improving speed and efficiency, and ensuring traceability and product quality ultimately.

So, business owners must seek process improvements which streamline processes, functions, procedures and get rid of repetitive tasks performed by humans to improve operational efficiency, reduce the risk of errors, and build competencies. Automation is becoming the bedrock of any mass production activity and businesses must prioritize its implementation to reduce production and operational losses occasioned by over-reliance on the human workforce.

8. Pay attention to ESG considerations

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations are becoming critical in business practices globally. The growing ESG adaptation is to ensure sustainable business practices are entrenched in business operations and to rally business commitments towards emerging issues affecting our world as such the protection of the environment, the promotion of inclusive leadership, and the empowerment of women among others.

Within the ESG framework, the measure of environmental compliance is the extent of a company’s environmental footprint. It assesses how a company engages for instance in waste disposal, reduction of carbon emissions and compliance with national environmental protection laws and regulations among others.

The social standards examine the relationship between a company and its employees as it relates to workplace attrition, workplace safety, commensurate remuneration, complaint procedures, dispute resolution mechanism, and the employment of the local people.

Whilst the governance framework focuses on the internal workings of a company such as the composition of the board of directors, the rights of shareholders, anti-corruption, and bribery practices, etc.

Compliance with ESG consideration will become essential and mandatory for business operations going forward. Therefore, business owners and managers must begin to pay attention to their adaptation relative to their operational area – compliance opens the door to new funding opportunities and new markets.

9. Diversify funding sources

Access to finance and credit will continue to be a major challenge for Startups and SMEs this year. The cost of accessing traditional financing options such as loans, credits, etc. will even be higher and many businesses may not be able to access them. This means that businesses must pursue other cheaper, more patient, and long-term sources of funding for their operations.

These options include equity, SAFE, and convertible loan/debt arrangements allowing funders immediate or conversion of participation interest in the Startup or SME. Nonetheless, the nature of the business activities, financial and operational track records, and the general investment interest may influence the opportunity to secure these alternative means of funding. Others may include credit sourcing arrangements and pre-financing of contract orders among others.

Business owners must appreciate the need to look for alternative funding based on the competitiveness of their operation and break the overreliance on traditional financing options.

10. Be a good corporate citizen

Times are undeniably hard and will get tougher for businesses. Likewise, these are difficult times for many individuals, especially the less privileged in society. Means of survival have been hampered by the current economic difficulties leaving many struggling to provide for the basic needs of life.

During moments like this, Startups and SMEs have the power to leverage their corporate social responsibility programs toward good causes. Such support programs can help foster strong brand and product equities with the general consumer population.

The benefits of supporting others cannot be discounted and business owners must endeavor to roll out initiatives that promote community support and build a good corporate citizenship profile for their businesses. These initiatives can be supported through various funding means such as a share of profit contribution, the share of selling price contribution, or through employee contribution schemes.

In difficult times, businesses must stand up for the community and its people.

CONCLUSION

We are in for a prolonged period of economic uncertainty. And the predicted outlook for the year 2023 is not a great one for Startups and SMEs in general. Therefore, business owners and managers must embrace initiatives that help support their resilience plans during these difficult times and the top 10 to-do list recommended in this article is worth considering.