Posts in category: Business strategy

In the dynamic business landscape, staying ahead requires careful planning, strategic thinking and a deep understanding of your company’s internal dynamics and external environment.

One tool that stands out in this regard is the SWOT analysis. SWOT, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, is a strategic planning technique that provides a holistic view of your business and helps formulate effective strategies.

What is a SWOT analysis?

If you’ve never heard of SWOT, you might be wondering what it means and why it’s so crucial to your success. Here’s a quick overview:

Strengths: What is your organization good at? Do you have strong brand recognition, a loyal customer base, a strong profit margin or innovative technology? Consider what you are doing well and how the results can help attract new stakeholders.

Weaknesses: What is holding you back from reaching your full potential? Consider above-average turnover, an inadequate supply chain or a lack of capital. How can these weaknesses be undone?

Opportunities: What external factors give your company a competitive advantage? A growing market share? New supplier options?

Threats: which factors can harm your organization? Consider rising production or material costs, new competitors entering the market or delayed deliveries or processes.

As you consider your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and strengths, you can break them down into several steps with actionable items, such as:

Determining your objective, e.g. whether you need to launch a new product or service.

Collecting resources, e.g. data to support the elements in your SWOT analysis and the staff needed to drive improvements and success.

Gathering ideas, e.g. listing ideas within each SWOT category and addressing questions related to internal and external influences.

Refining the findings, i.e. cleaning up the ideas from the SWOT analysis and focusing on the biggest risks to the organization. This may cause a debate between stakeholders, e.g. the benefits of launching an innovative new product versus production costs and market demand.

Developing a strategy, e.g. converting the SWOT analysis into a strategic, executable plan.

Since you know the basics of SWOT analysis, let’s dive deeper into the individual benefits of completing this important assessment.

Strategic planning for the future

At the heart of every successful business is a well-defined strategy. A SWOT analysis acts as a compass that guides this strategy by evaluating your company’s internal strengths and weaknesses and identifying the opportunities and threats that lie ahead. Armed with this comprehensive understanding, you can chart a clear path forward.

This strategy requires internal and external assessment for success:

Internal assessment: leveraging strengths and addressing weaknesses. A SWOT analysis reveals the core strengths of your company. These strengths can be leveraged to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Conversely, the analysis also reveals weaknesses that require your attention.

External Assessment: Navigating Opportunities and Threats. Understanding the external landscape is just as essential. A SWOT analysis helps you identify new opportunities that align with your strengths while shedding light on potential threats so you can proactively mitigate risk.

SWOT analysis for proactive risk management

No business trip is without risks. However, a SWOT analysis allows you to proactively identify potential threats. By thoroughly assessing your business environment, you can uncover latent threats that might otherwise catch you off guard, such as shifting market trends, disruptive technologies, economic downturns and regulatory changes.

A strategic SWOT analysis will help you see the silver lining in these threats.

By carefully assessing the external environment, you can spot opportunities even in the face of threats. For example, if a new competitor enters the market, this may push you to innovate and renew your products or services, potentially leading to a stronger market position.

reasons to prioritize environmental conservation in your business plan

Prioritizing environmental conservation within your business plan can have a wide range of attractive benefits and developing an environmental management system is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this.

An EMS will demonstrate to internal and external stakeholders that you have a moral obligation to maintain, manage and improve all aspects of your business’s environmental impact. This can give you a major advantage over the competition, while broadening the market and paving the way for new business opportunities.

In this article, we explore the benefits of prioritizing environmental conservation and creating a process for safety and environmental protection with Persiwalg.

Reduce costs and waste on your end while minimizing your environmental impact

Have you controlled resource consumption across your organization? If not, you have the opportunity to save money and avoid wasting your materials and energy. There are several ways you can reduce costs through environmental conservation.

Recycling and Waste Reduction — Research the latest innovations and trends in waste reduction in your industry. In mining, for example, scrap mining is becoming increasingly popular. By focusing production on using only sustainable goods that can be reused, reproduced or recycled, the mining industry can begin to reduce its impact on a global scale.

Facilities — Make your facility more environmentally friendly by integrating energy-efficient equipment. This may mean a higher upfront but they use less energy, resulting in lower electric bills and costs in the long run. You can also work to reduce water waste by using rainwater and opting for more efficient fixtures and appliances.

Product materials – In response to growing concerns about climate change, organizations around the world have made changes to their materials, ingredients, packaging and more. Technological advances have resulted in more sustainable materials and production methods. Taking the time to learn about material alternatives in your industry can help you develop new products and methods that are more sustainable.

It is not always easy to identify waste within your own company. With this in mind, we recommend that you have a third party assess your business operations. For example, the Persiwalg team can carry out a site risk assessment, as well as energy efficiency audits and commercial and residential energy audits. If necessary, we can even create a sustainability program for your company. Contact us today.

Increase your brand’s appeal to potential customers, stakeholders and clients

With this in mind, educating customers about your commitment to sustainability can be a huge selling point for your business. If your company has a certified environmental management system, don’t keep it to yourself; incorporate this information into your company’s marketing strategy to:

• Attract more customers/clients
• Build a stronger, more positive brand image
• Develop trust between your company and your customers/clients
• Meet client/customer expectations
• Increase customer retention.

Manage environmental risks and meet certification requirements

When your business interacts directly with the environment, it will have a positive or negative impact. One of the requirements of an EMS is to identify your impact on the environment and determine whether this impact is significant. You can then take action and eliminate or control them.

Understanding your impact on the environment and identifying risks is important for a number of reasons:

• It ensures that your EMS meets certification standards.
• This allows you to prevent or reduce the negative effects of your business on the environment.
• This allows you to continuously improve your EMS.

Creating and maintaining a will encourages you to continually assess, monitor and improve your business, not only to maintain certification, but also to identify and address new or emerging environmental risks within your business.

Benefits of outsourcing your occupational health and safety management

Outsourcing your occupational health and safety management can provide many more benefits than a safe working environment. It can impact your bottom line and give you more opportunities to grow your business. Below you will find reasons to outsource your occupational health and safety management.

Save tens of thousands of dollars

An OHS management fee costs approx. Compared to the average annual salary of an in-house occupational health and safety manager, your savings are in addition to the money you save on holiday pay, sick pay, pensions and other associated costs for retaining an in-house occupational health and safety professional.

The average salary for a full-time health and safety manager. This figure salary is beyond the reach of most SMEs. By outsourcing your occupational health and safety management, you get access to the same expertise for a fraction. By retaining an OHS manager on a retainer basis or paying for ad-hoc safety management projects and only paying for the services you need, you can ensure professional safety management for your business without having to pay a full-time employee.

Uninterrupted management and scalable services

As your business grows, your occupational health and safety management needs to grow with you. As your management needs increase, your outsourced occupational health and safety management provider can provide additional services to meet demand. As a bonus, your company will receive uninterrupted services regardless of personal changes within your company. Companies often have to make an effort to replace management team members through outsourcing. This way you can guarantee a continuous, uninterrupted occupational health and safety management service.

Stay up to date with the changing needs of the industry

Many business owners struggle to keep up with ever-changing workplace health and safety needs. From an increased focus on mental and social wellbeing to the pressure to constantly monitor, assess and improve, it can be a challenge to keep up.

The ISO principle of continuous improvement means that companies must continually reassess and expand their existing occupational health and safety management. With the help of an outsourced occupational health and safety manager, you can benefit from their expertise and the combined knowledge of the company they work for, giving you a wealth of knowledge.

Free up more time for core activities

Small business owners often have to wear multiple hats and will try to take on safety management themselves. By outsourcing your occupational health and safety management, you free up more time to spend on core activities that add value, thinking about the big picture and on day-to-day business operations.

Create a safer workplace

An important reason to outsource your occupational health and safety management is of course to create a safer workplace. An outsourced occupational health and safety manager can provide value-adding advice and increase the social, physical and mental safety of your workplace.

Benefit from a wide range of experience

Occupational health and safety managers who look after multiple clients have a clear advantage over internal safety managers: their broad expertise. When an OHS manager works for multiple clients and diverse industries, he benefits from improved insights, learnings and experiences. They will likely have worked with companies of a similar scope to yours and can provide valuable insights as well as apply their learnings from clients across industries.

Who should outsource their occupational health and safety management?

• SMEs that cannot justify the costs of a full-time or part-time occupational health and safety manager
• Any company that wants uninterrupted occupational health and safety management
• Any company that wants to stay informed of the latest best practices in the field of occupational health and safety

Occupational health management outsourced to Persiwalg

At Persiwalg we offer the following outsourced occupational health and safety management services:

• Fully outsourced safety management – Use Persiwalg as your outsourced safety department
• Safety training and advice – Let us provide all safety training and introductions at company and location level
• Safety Audits – We can carry out all internal system audits and safety audits or inspections on site

We can also provide the same services for quality and environmental management, so you can integrate all compliance requirements and minimize your administrative burden.

Tips for working from home to increase productivity

It’s completely normal to feel unmotivated or less productive during lockdown, but there are simple ways to make working from home easier and more productive.

Stick to a routine

Having a routine is useful at any time in our lives, but especially when we lack structure. During the Covid-19-induced lockdowns, we can quickly lose focus and drop some of our usual habits, such as regular exercise, bedtimes and meals. According to Headspace, having a set routine can have huge mental health benefits, reducing stress, managing anxiety and reducing our mental load.

Take regular breaks

When you’re surrounded by coworkers, it’s easy to remember to take a break. Your colleague may force or ask you to go for a walk around the block. If all you do is work from home day in and day out, it can be easy to get caught up in your work and forget to take a break. As part of your routine, you should plan for regular break times.

Ask for help

When you are in your usual work environment, your colleagues are all around you throughout the working day and you can easily go to someone’s desk and ask for clarification or advice. Calling a colleague feels like a lot more work than talking to them in person and it can be easy to do the task yourself, but a quick phone call can make all the difference

Create a separate workplace if possible

If you can set up a separate office in your home, that is ideal. If you don’t have the space, creating a designated work area also works. Having a workstation that can stay set up will make you feel more comfortable, instead of having to clear your work stuff from the dining room table every night, for example.

Managing remote teams during lockdown

Managing remote teams during lockdown and beyond presents a unique set of challenges for managers. There are some simple steps you can take to maintain employee morale and ensure your team remains supported and productive.

Set clear expectations

Make sure your team knows what is expected of them. Provide clear instructions, timelines and deadlines for all tasks and set basic expectations.

Check in regularly

Call each team member at least once a month to check in with them. Discuss what works and what doesn’t and ask if they need help from you or if there are ways you can make their job easier. Productivity can suffer when there is a disconnect between employees and management.

Provide resources for mental well-being

Provide a relevant Employee Assistance Program for your staff to ensure their wellbeing is taken into account.

Provide resources for a home office

Your employees work better if they have the right equipment. Provide all necessary office supplies and equipment to ensure they have the necessary tools to do their job.