13 may be
generally regarded as a horrendously unlucky number, but it does not
necessarily mean that 2013 is going to be a bad year for everyone. Especially
for small businesses, the New Year comes with the promise of great new trends, but
not forgetting of course the threat of new problems and disasters business
owners may be faced with. So what are entrepreneurs and businesses faced with
for 2013? What are the different trends to be excited about as well as issues
to prepare for in order to ensure a productive and successful in this year of
the snake? Let’s look at a few of them.
Resilience.
Living in a
disaster prone area can show you the many horror stories of small businesses
literally crumbling down into failure. A building can be destroyed in a matter
of hours, if not minutes, and that’s really just about how long it takes for
your small business dreams to be destroyed as well. In the wake of horrible
disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis, entrepreneurs are striving to make their
businesses more resilient so that they could bounce back from almost any dilemma
that they face. It is, after all, the more agreeable alternative to rebuilding
over and over again every time the weather turns for the worse. 2013 is for more resilient businesses.
Mastery of social media.
Learning
how to navigate through social media sites is not hard, not in the least. Even
8-year-olds can set up an account and start cruising through Facebook and
Twitter without as much as a batted eyelid. It starts to get hard when you start
using these sites for marketing, because then you start
considering factors such as post quality, schedule, and many others. Currently,
there is something akin to a race going on, a competition for the mastery
of social media, and whoever manages to rise above the random tweets and
successfully bring together their social media efforts would have a lot to
celebrate about for 2013.
Onshoring.
Through the
years, it has become normal to outsource manufacturing as well as services to other
shores. However, the winds have shifted once again and manufacturing is increasingly
being reclaimed back into U.S. factories. A lot of factors
have come together to bring about this trend, including rising costs of labor
overseas as well as rising costs of fuel. Small businesses are at the forefront
of this “onshoring” as it is called, especially since they make up a good
portion of U.S. manufacturing.
Booming unskilled workforce?
Image from http://newdeal.feri.org/library/c13.htm
It is
harder than ever gathering together a team with advanced skills in certain
areas, especially since a slight move away from specialization towards being a
“jack of all trades”. This brain drain is definitely one big issue faced by
small businesses in 2013 as the struggle to find qualified personnel becomes more
of a challenge. Only time will tell whether the demand for skill would slow down
enough so that people can have a chance training and learning to fill the vacant
positions for skilled personnel.
That’s only
four of the different trends in small business for 2013. What do you think your
own business would be faced with for this year?
