It is time for your spring assessment

The first 4 months of 2023 are already over. While it may seem like 2023 started just yesterday, a third of the year is already gone. Now is the right time to look at your company’s performance, assess, and determine how to move forward for the rest of the year.?

In this newsletter, I’ll share with you my process of evaluating performance and what to do next. Want to discuss your results in detail and see where you can go next? Book a free consultation today!

Evaluate your results

It seems like a straightforward thing to do, and it is, but it’s incredibly important; evaluate your performance of the year so far. Only by doing this do you gain insights into the hard data and know where you are on track and behind, overperforming or underperforming.?

Data to look at:

• Revenue development and growth
• Net profit and margin?
• Key customer segments and traction
• New products launched and in-market success
• Your innovation pipeline and upcoming product launches
• Marketing impact, such as brand recognition, social media reach, website traffic
• Customer feedback and net promoter scores
• Employee engagement and retention
• Sustainability impact and progress against ESG goals
• Your progress against long-term strategic objectives

Compare this data to the goals you set for this year and evaluate it with your team. Where are you now? Is your performance so far in line with your expectations? Is your progress enough to meet this year’s goals???

If you are on track then that’s great news. Celebrate successes with your team and let them know they are valued. If you are behind the expected progress, then there is work to do in the next quarters. Ultimately, you should identify what is working and try to accelerate in that space, and pinpoint where there are challenges that you need to overcome.?

Accelerate your success

You should leverage the great work that you did so far and try to accelerate it. Achieved a low amount of customer complaints? Strive for an even lower number in the next couple of months. Reached a new website visitors record? Analyze what pages your customers visited and try to optimize them as much as possible.??

Be ambitious, try to find that spring energy, and motivate your team to accelerate what you have been doing well in the last couple of months.

Identify and solve challenges

Gather all your assessed data and see where you are behind on progress and/or underperforming. Look at those areas and see where you may be able to identify issues. Was it a team issue? Or are there new market developments? You’ll be able to pinpoint what departments and workflows need attention. Make sure to prioritize the areas that have the biggest impact on you reaching this year’s goals.?

Are there no clear focus areas that need improvement? Then work on more general topics. Align your organization, and make sure that everyone in your company knows what the overall purpose is and what you are working towards. Focus on your customers, see what feedback they give you, and what ideas they might have. Often it is your customers who have the best ideas and input on how to improve your business. Finally, make sure you are digitally empowered. Whether it is with internal systems or your online presence, the future is digital, and in 2023 you need to be focused on that.

Are you having difficulties scaling your company? There are challenges that everyone runs into when they are in the scale up process. Check out our blog post on scale-up challenges that every CEO faces and recognize what you need to improve.

Set new goals

Although you are behind on progress doesn’t mean that you cannot reach your goals anymore. But certain developments can’t help put pressure on your progress. In this case, it is best to adjust your goals to a more realistic target.?

On the other hand, you should strive to accelerate in areas where you did perform well. Be ambitious and set new goals that capture the winning spirit of the last few months.?

Additionally, adjust your overall strategy and department strategy plans. This way you know what you are working towards again, and you can incorporate your new findings into your updated plan. This makes sure that everyone is working with the most up-to-date findings.

If you need help with updating your strategy, we at Nextday have a strategy refresh package where we help you get your strategy up to date.

Start thinking about next year

It may seem a bit early to look ahead to 2024, but it’s closer than you think. My final tip is to keep 2024 in the back of your mind. Now is the time to execute on 2023 goals and actions, but soon it will be time to define what you want to achieve in 2024. I recommend that you start writing some thoughts down leading up to summer. After the summer, you’ll be prepared and ready to think about what next year will bring you. At Nextrday we always say: focus on tomorrow, not just today.

Act today

Although the first few months of the year are over, there is still a lot of time to turn 2023 around and reach your goals. By exchanging experiences, we can learn from each other so let me know what tips you have found useful in the past.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions:

www.nextrday.com

E. [email protected]?

T. +41 7978 99526

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