How to bring your strategy to life: making decisions that achieve your business goals Details 29 October 2026 For SMEs You’ve done your SWOT analysis. You’ve spent time thinking about where your business is today, where you want it to be in three or five years’ time, and what might help (or hinder) you along the way.You’ve agreed your strategy.So, what happens next?Sadly, this is where many strategic plans start gathering dust.Creating a strategy is important, but the real value comes from using it. A good strategy shouldn’t simply describe where you want to go. It should influence the decisions you make, the opportunities you pursue, the resources you allocate and, just as importantly, the things you decide not to do.In other words, strategy needs to become part of the way you run the organisation. Use your strategy to make better decisionsIn an earlier article, Why not all business is good business, I looked at the temptation to say yes to opportunities simply because they are there.A new customer, contract, project or partnership can look attractive. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it is right for you.This is where your strategic planning becomes useful.Before making a significant decision, ask some straightforward questions:• Does this help us achieve one or more of our strategic objectives?• Does it fit with our values and the organisation we want to become?• Do we have the people, time and financial resources to do it properly?• What might we have to stop doing in order to take this on?• What risks does it create?• Will we still think this was a good decision in three years’ time? Read more
TOP TIPS TO MAXIMISE THE VALUE OF YOUR BUSINESS Details 27 October 2026 For SMEs Are you thinking about selling your business? Whether you want to sell now or at any point in the future, it’s never too soon to start thinking about what you want from a sale, and what you need to have in place to make your business sellable. Here are my top tips. How many of these have you already thought about, or do you have work to do? Read more
Reputational Risk: a Charity’s Most Vulnerable Asset Details 23 September 2026 For Charities For most charities, reputation is one of their most valuable assets. It may not appear on the balance sheet, but without it fundraising becomes harder, volunteers disappear, potential partners become cautious and beneficiaries may lose confidence.Unlike a building or an investment portfolio, however, reputation can take years to build and only days – sometimes hours – to damage.That makes reputational risk a governance issue, not simply a communications issue. The Charity Commission's current risk-management guidance expects trustees to identify the major risks facing their charity and decide how they should be managed. Damage to reputation is specifically recognised as a potential risk. What do we mean by reputational risk?Reputational risk is the possibility that an event, behaviour, decision or failure damages the confidence that stakeholders have in the charity.Importantly, the event itself and the reputational consequences are not necessarily the same thing.A safeguarding incident may be unavoidable. A cyberattack may succeed despite reasonable precautions. An employee may behave improperly despite good recruitment and supervision. A well-meaning trustee can make a statement in what they think is a private situation but find that it leaks into the public domain.What often determines the scale of the reputational damage is how the organisation responds.Did the trustees know about the risk? Did they ask appropriate questions? Were concerns escalated? Was action taken quickly? Was the regulator informed where necessary? And was the charity open about what had happened? Read more