translated from Spanish: Tips for planning your business

The correct and successful management in a company, begins with good planning, which first means monitoring the environment, both the market, the industry and the company itself. “One tool to do this is The SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats). With this list we will be able to identify, for example, which strengths help to take advantage of the opportunities or what are the weaknesses that can affect me, given the threats of the market”, says Sebastián Uriarte, academic of the Business School of the Adolfo Ibáñez University.Among the many aspects that are critical, it also highlights an accounting in which it maintains a cash flow that ensures the working capital necessary for the operation of the company. “A trusted and trained team for the company’s own tasks and the constant innovation of products or services in search of creating and maintaining a sustained competitive advantage are other critical factors,” he says. Jorge Herrera, academic at the School of Administration of the Pontifical Catholic University, in the meantime, highlights the importance of knowing how to focus on achieving two or three goals in the year, with excellence, without losing the flexibility to respond to market changes. “Always our ability to take on tasks will be less than the number of good ideas. It’s proven that when you focus on more than three ideas, you achieve much less. Even if it’s an inch, every day we must try to advance one of our critical goals.” It clarifies that the leadership of the one who founded or leads the maximum management is what has the greatest impact on management and that in the early stages of a company, the one who exercises that leadership needs to place special emphasis on the sacrifice and effort that this entails for each or Lol “Here it is key to be able to define a company purpose, which allows to give a sense of transcendence to the work”. INVESTMENTS AND SAVINGSValuing profitability, time and risk are three necessary factors when investing in the business and growing it. “A company’s investment decision goes hand in hand with the sales projection, the amount to be invested, the risk and the profitability expected of it. If this return is attractive compared to the risk of making the investment, then it might be a good decision to play those chips, otherwise wait ingforeby save for an upcoming business opportunity,” Uriarte stresses.To finance these investments, a possibility is to do so through debt (financial institutions) or from public funds or investors, and here “one of the central aspects will be innovation, as these institutions seek attractive and disruptive value propositions,” he says. On the other hand, Herrera comments that, in the growth stage, the ideal is to get angel investments, investment funds, bank credit, while in the expansion and development, it is possible to access investment from capital funds or a strategic partner, among Other. “Saving is an important source of funding, but it’s as fast as sales are fast. That is, it grows at the rate that retained profits grow. Therefore, if you want to grow at a different rate than you have been growing, saving is not a very efficient alternative,” says UC academics. Other financing options include leasing, factoring, crowdfunding or peer-to-peer loans and, finally, equity. “The recommendation is not to bring new partners into the company in the very early stages, because you may lose ownership of the property,” Herrera suggests.

Original source in Spanish