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How to Lay the Foundations for a Successful Business

How to Lay the Foundations for a Successful Business

Recent studies suggest that around half of start-up companies fail within the first five years of operation. This means that even entrepreneurs who are convinced they have a great idea can quickly become just another statistic. To combat this, you’ll need to lay the foundations necessary for a successful business to flourish. Here’s what you need to know.

Have the Right Insurance Cover

Once you’re a business owner, one of the first things you’ll have to consider is how you’re going to protect your company. Getting the right insurance policies in place is integral to ensuring long-term survival. Not only will you have to consider essentials like property insurance, professional indemnity, and employers’ and public liability, but there may be additional policies specific to you that prove to be a wise investment. For instance, if you live in an area prone to adverse weather conditions like flooding or storms, it may be necessary to take out speciality cover.

Invest in the Right Technology

Many of us take the technology we use everyday for granted, but the truth is no successful business could get through a workday without it. If you want your business to be successful in the long-run, you’ll need to make sure that you design your system so that it will be able to scale with the growth of your business. This is relatively simple for software, as solutions like cloud storage can be easily upgraded or downgraded as and when you need it. For hardware, though, you’ll need to make the right buys from the offset. Try and make sure that desktop PCs or servers like those found here are able to be upgraded to keep up with changing trends.

Make Sure You Can Adapt

Finally, the most important thing any business can do to safeguard the future of their business is to learn how to adapt. No industry will stay the same forever so you’ll need to try and anticipate the changes before they become popular. One of the ways you can do this is to regularly solicit feedback from your target demographics to make sure you’re aware of what your customers values. However, sometimes even the customer doesn’t know what they want until they see it. This is why employing the best staff you can to create the most innovative solutions is so important.

Running your own business is never easy and mistakes are inevitable. By giving yourself a solid foundation, though, you’ll be able to make sure these mistakes aren’t too costly.

By Ethan Theo

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.