Achieving Business Growth in 2024

What do SME owners and senior managers need to be thinking about in 2024? Our CEO Martin Brown casts his eyes to the future while also reviewing another successful year for Elephants Child in 2023. 

 

Strategic Intent 

New Year, new start is my theme for 2024. Get working ON the business, not just in it. Are you clear on your strategic intentions? Make sure you’ve got your one-year and three-year action plans in place. 

 

Business Purpose 

As a business owner, my advice is to get on the front foot with your own business purpose, especially from an environmental standpoint. Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) issues should be a big focus for you if they aren’t already. Your competitors will be addressing ESG and your customers, especially big corporates, will be expecting you to be on top of it if you are to work with them. Regulation in this area is developing and it is simply too big an area to avoid if you want to succeed in 2024. You need to know what the ESG agenda means for you and your team. The great news is that at Elephants Child we can help you understand your ESG agenda with our experienced advisors and through our partnership with eevery. We’ll help you benchmark your activity, identify your gaps and opportunities and work with you on a solid action plan going forward.  

 

Prioritise People 

Another important area of focus in 2024 should be your people. Having a solid grip on ESG will help your recruitment and retention as these issues become increasingly important for people. But also don’t lose sight of the basics of keeping your people happy and productive. Look at how you can support wellbeing, flexible working and mental health. Attracting and retaining good staff is vital. 

 

 

As for 2023, it has been a great year at Elephant’s Child. The general business environment has been tough with interest rates and inflation affected liquidity in the marketplace. But despite that, we’ve been working with our existing partners and new partners, and it’s been a high growth year for us. We’ve done very well in achieving our CE plus accreditation in the year and we’re plotting a course towards B Corp accreditation too. We’ve worked on our five sales pillars while making our sales and marketing efforts ever more integrated.  The uncertainty and volatility that we saw in the marketplace has meant an increased focus on our cost base. How do we stop that inflation creeping out of control? How do we take good control and understand our cash flow? And importantly, looking back into the business, what are those areas of waste?     

 

We’ve helped a software business looking to complete its sale by the end of the year, as well as supporting growth journeys, management buyout journeys, discussions around employee ownership, trusts, and full and partial exits. We’ve got a great team, a great ‘herd’ and we’re hoping to do much more with our group next year.  

 

If you want to get your plans in place for 2024 and beyond, get in touch for a free and confidential discussion about your business and its current valuation.