Starting a business is an accomplishment in itself but this by no means ensures that it will be a success. The smaller and newer a company is can lead to small to moderately sized problems impacting the business immensely. A small area like taking out a predatory loan can haunt a business for years. Keeping costs low during the infancy of any business is important so that money can be used for marketing and business operations. Taking a proactive approach to preventing problems is important as mistakes in business usually results in money lost. The following are areas to protect to ensure success at your company.
Cybersecurity
The last thing a company of any size needs is a data breach. This can ruin a reputation and lose a multitude of customers depending on what information was stolen. Customers do not want to deal with the issues that are caused by identity theft. Cybersecurity services are important to invest in as these will prevent problems rather than the business scrambling to tell customers about compromised accounts. The money spent on these services will pale in comparison to revenue that could be lost due to a data leak.
Human Resources
A disgruntled former employee can tie up a business for months in court leading to quite a bit of money spent. The right HR professionals will understand the processes to terminate someone based on their behavior. There are plenty of businesses that outsource HR as they do not want personal interests of these employees to cloud their judgement. You do not want a personal grudge to result in someone losing their job as this could result in a wrongful termination suit the company could lose. Cash flow tied up in court can prevent consistent growth especially in business models where inventory needs to be purchased up front.
Employee Security
You are going to want to do background checks on employees for a variety of reasons. You want to keep staff safe so you are not going to want to hire someone with a history of violence. Drug convictions can be a red flag as well as addiction can lead people to steal the information of other employees or clients. The parking lot should also be monitored as you do not want employees feeling unsafe coming to or leaving work.
The Brand’s Image
The company’s reputation and brand image are important to protect. The best thing that can be done is to provide great products/services at reasonable prices. Customer service is going to be something that should be a focus as happy customers rarely go elsewhere or even look at other options to have their needs met. Public relations can work wonders as can digital marketing. Companies do make mistakes so it is important to react to these mistakes in a constructive manner instead of panicking and making a rash decision.
As you can see, running a company will require a founder to be aware of quite a bit at once. List out certain areas and goals for the month so you can actively work towards these. Protect the areas about as it will help ensure future success.
