Business Strategy & Forecasting
The bigger questions can get pushed further down the list.
Tell us what you’re planningSometimes you need space to look beyond the day-to-day
When you are busy running a business, it is easy for most of your attention to go on what needs doing this week.
Clients need looking after. Staff need managing. Bills need paying. Decisions keep coming.
Where do you want the business to be in a year?
What are you trying to build?
What needs to change to get there?
We can help you step back, look at the numbers alongside the wider picture and turn those bigger questions into something more practical.
We’ll help you put some shape around the plan
You do not need to arrive with a polished business plan.
Sometimes the starting point is simply having an idea of what you would like to achieve.
That might mean growing turnover, improving profit, taking on more staff, opening another location, changing the way the business is structured or creating something that is less dependent on you personally.
We can work through what that could look like financially and help you identify the things that may need to happen along the way.
Forecasting gives the plan something to work from
Once we understand what you are trying to achieve, we can start putting numbers around it.
That might include looking at:
Expected sales
Costs and overheads
Staffing
Profit margins
Cash requirements
Investment
Tax
Funding
Different growth scenarios
The forecast does not need to predict the future perfectly.
Its value is in helping you see what may need to happen for the plan to work, and where the pressure points could be.
What happens if things go differently?
Most business plans do not play out exactly as expected.
Sales might grow faster.
A big opportunity might appear.
Costs might increase.
A new member of staff might be needed sooner than planned.
We can model different scenarios and help you understand what each one could mean.
That gives you more confidence when decisions need to be made quickly, because you have already thought about some of the possibilities.
We can be a sounding board too
Sometimes the most useful part of these conversations is having someone outside the business to talk things through with.
This can be especially valuable where there is more than one owner or director involved.
Different people can look at the same opportunity in very different ways.
One person may be focused on growth.
Another may be thinking about risk, cash or how much pressure the business can realistically take on.
We can help bring the financial side into the conversation and give everyone something objective to work from.
Our role is not to make the decision for you.
It is to help you understand what each option could mean and give you space to work through it properly.
Book a 15-minute chatThe plan can change as the business changes
Strategy should not be something you write once and leave in a folder.
We can revisit the numbers as things move.
If the business performs differently from the forecast, we can look at why.
If priorities change, we can update the plan.
If a new opportunity comes along, we can put it into the numbers and see how it affects everything else.
The aim is to keep the plan useful and connected to what is really happening in the business.
Thinking about the next stage?
You might know exactly what you want to do next.
You might only know that the business feels ready for something different.
Both are good places to start.
We can sit down with you, look at where the business is now and help you work through what the next stage could look like financially.
Tell us what you’re planning