Jollies and jolts

The Obama head on clash with Congress is over for the moment but the real jollies and jolts will come in the next financial year.

In the “we are all Keynesian’s now” spirit of winding back national deficits and cutting back everything that is not politically nailed down, there will be plenty of opportunity for import substitution in the US and economic development in emerging nations.

Smart companies will use the next three months of business growth and innovation to build a solid platform for next year’s expansion. They will engage professional managers and hand over responsibility for the constant effort to keep down costs, manage cashflow and keep current customers satisfied. This means that the BAS demands and end of year paperwork will be tackled early enough to stop it becoming an excuse for inaction in the coming year.

This is a good time to consider switching banks and talking with a your accountants about debt consolidation, factoring and investment in export development plans. Finding ways to simplify financial arrangements and strengthen bank appreciation of the prospects for a growing business will deliver the July jollies needed in the new financial year.

Prospects for growth are continuing to show that the post-disaster recovery will be faster than most thought possible and the flow on from the two-speed economy will improve until the budget blues take over the media headlines. Consolidation and a heavy focus on customer relationship management require the whole staff team to move from selling to marketing as the driver for development.

Gary Morgan reports, “Consumer confidence has jumped 5.3pts to 120.9 after the RBA left interest rates unchanged at 4.75% and indicated that Australian interest rates were likely to remain unchanged for the foreseeable future.

Australians were more confident about their personal financial situations with 31% (up 4%) of Australians saying they are ‘better off financially’ than at this time last year and 42% (up 3%) saying they expect to be ‘better off financially’ this time next year. Australians are also more confident about economic conditions in Australia over the next 12 months with 38% (up 2%) expecting ‘good times’ for Australia as a whole over the next year.”

The downsize of all this good news is that the RBA will be getting a very itchy trigger finger on a .25 rate rise once it knows what Wayne Swan is really going to do to land his politically determined surplus and prepare the second half of the year for a “great big tax” debate.

This will have the same effect as an election campaign (which it really is given Wilkie’s planned destabilisation of the Gillard Government and Oakshott’s desire to hold his seat) that will bring the rate of growth for Aussie domestic business to a jolting halt from July.

Small business must invest in innovation, multi-skilling platforms and sales promotions now if they are to surge ahead next year and not assume that this year’s better than last year results can be extrapolated into 2012.

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Dr Colin Benjamin is an entrepreneurship and strategic thinking consultant at Marshall Place Associates, which offers a range of strategic thinking tools that open up a universe of new possibilities for individuals and organisations committed to applying the processes of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. Colin is also a member of the global Association of Professional Futurists.