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Cape Town – December is silly season and is a time when your business might be showing signs of slowing down, when it should be showing signs of innovation to remain on top of its game, according to a strategist at Raizcorp.
As the discussions around December holiday plans start to emerge, have you stopped to think about how innovative your business is and how you can push yourself and your staff to remain innovative during silly season? Is your business innovative and have you built a culture of innovation to remain a success?
Ben Smit, strategy and marketing guide at Raizcorp, said for a business of any size to remain successful, it should possess a culture of innovation. “A company that understands innovation and works towards this is also one that understands how to continuously push themselves and their staff to achieve great things – through good times and hard times and no matter the time of year.”
Smit said businesses should push goals and targets they were aiming to reach in January forward to avoid making December a “dead month”.
“Payment cycles towards the end of the year really, really slow down, so we encourage our portfolio companies to try and adapt and change their collection strategy,” he said. “So instead of closing off on the 19th of December, just push that date forward by a week or so to make sure that all moneys that are outstanding come in.”
Companies should also make use of automated systems to help over the festive period, said Smit.
He said entrepreneurs normally start off working "in" the business; however, there are innovative ways to work "on" the business, using automated systems.
Using technology would also help your business shift above the competition. “Being innovative in the tech space is really the differentiator that sets businesses apart from one another,” he said. “Find that one out-of-the-box thing that is not so evident.”
Using the construction sector as an example, Smit said you could manage your site managers from an iPad to monitor activities even if you can’t be present. “It means you can scale and manage more than one project at once,” he said. “There are a lot of programs that building managers can use.”
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