Starting your own business gives you a chance to escape the rat race; it enables you to pursue your own interests, build your skills and earn money in a way that’s meaningful for you. However, the current global situation has created a tricky terrain for any budding businessperson to navigate, and there are more factors to take into consideration than ever before if you really want to make this work. Read on to find out more.
Take the current global events and economic climate into account
Getting a business started and running well has always been a struggle; previously, twenty percent failed within their first year and a total of sixty percent had gone bust within three. But add a global pandemic into the mix, Brexit, the war between Russia and Ukraine, huge political shakeups, a cost of living crisis and massive levels of inflation, it’s more difficult than ever. It’s not to say that starting a successful business isn’t possible, but when the odds were already stacked against entrepreneurs before all of this, it’s certainly something to factor in when you’re in the planning stages. All of these global events mean prices of raw materials and goods can fluctuate wildly. Political tensions and huge changes such as Brexit can mean that things like taxes and shipping are more complicated than ever. Before launching your business, think carefully about your supply chains, the costs of your materials, your ability to ship your products and more to avoid any surprises later down the line.
Consider what you will sell
Another thing to be aware of when you’re starting a business in the current climate is that customers’ needs and expectations have changed dramatically. High levels of inflation coupled up with a cost of living crisis, lost jobs due to businesses failing, huge energy bills and more mean that customers simply don’t have the expendable income they had before. This means that if you’re planning on starting a business that sells luxury products or anything that could be considered as a ‘non- essential’ product or service you should think carefully. Do your market research to ensure your target customers are likely to have the means, or desire to buy whatever you’re offering. You might have had a business idea that you’ve had on the backburner for years and are keen to get it started, but consider if now is a good time to do so. Perhaps it would be better to look into solving a problem or finding your niche within the current climate and considering your other ideas at a later date when things have (hopefully) returned to a more normal situation.
Consider working remotely as much as possible
Having as much of your business as possible running remotely gives you more security. Things can still keep ticking over even if there does happen to be more lockdowns in the future. When the cost of fuel is rising sharply, you don’t have to worry about your employees being able to afford to get to work. You don’t need to foot the high cost of bills to run an office. Just about everything can be done remotely these days, from finance to IT services, marketing and advertising, content creation and much more. You could hire your own remote teams, or you could outsource to third party companies instead. It makes good sense this day in age, and as a bonus, staff that work from home tend to be happier and healthier too. While more and more companies were embracing this pre-pandemic, it snowballed when we went through periods of having no choice but to work from home. And many companies have seen the benefit of keeping things this way, despite being able to return back to more traditional working now.
Times have changed dramatically, and as business owners it’s our job to keep up with what’s going on in the world and adapt accordingly. It just so happens that the combination of current changes are much more dramatic than anything we’ve ever experienced, making it a difficult time to start or run a business.
Are you considering starting up a business during the current climate? What sort of things have you factored into your business plan to account for all of the issues mentioned above?
