What Comes First: Business Strategy or Tax Strategy?

Any business advisor will tell you the answer, but what’s happening in the real world?

Here are a few examples:

VAT

When Jeanne started her exercise class business, she decided after taking advice that she wouldn’t register for VAT. It makes sense. If you want to compete with everyone else then you can’t charge 20% higher prices to include VAT. But now she’s stuck. She can’t grow the business beyond the VAT threshold because she would have to increase her prices or take a significant reduction in margin. Now she’s contemplating setting up separate businesses to boost her earnings. It’s quickly going to get complicated – she can do without all the distraction of doubling the admin work.

Five years in to running his hair salon, Scott takes a day off a week and shuts early some days just to limit his takings to keep them below the VAT threshold. But he’s living hand-to-mouth.

Which came first in these two cases: tax strategy or business strategy? The payoff of course is that both businesses reduce their tax bill, but at what cost?

I’m sure this isn’t what was intended when a VAT registration threshold was included in the VAT legislation created in 1973.

Income Tax

John runs a sole-tradership and draws money from the business as he needs it and, more importantly, when it’s available during the year. His accountant then finds the most tax efficient way at the year-end to distribute his drawings between salary, expenses and dividends. Cashflow is not managed proactively, so while John knows what’s in the bank he doesn’t keep track of every due payment or receipt so he sometimes draws too much and leaves the business short of cash. This regularly causes him to have sleepless nights.

Norman runs a limited company and runs it the same way. He takes no salary as such and reinvests most of the profits into the business to fund growth. He restricts his drawings to pay as little tax as possible. He’s looking to exit the business in 3-5 years. Unfortunately, because he’s not taking any kind of salary, let alone a market rate salary, he has no idea how profitable the business truly is and is complicating things for himself when he eventually come to sell.

Ken is looking to buy a new vehicle for his business, that he will use personally too, in order to reduce his tax bill. However, his tax savings are less than savings he’ll make obtaining a vehicle this way compared to some of the alternatives.

Which came first in these cases – business strategy or tax strategy? Again, the payoff is a lower tax bill, but at what cost in terms of business growth and equity?

These examples are not rare. Many micro-businesses and SMEs are operated in a way that minimises tax liabilities. Their business strategy is defined by their tax strategy. In the real world, it seems, tax strategy more often takes priority over business strategy.

And in every case described it is stunting the growth potential of the business. That may be OK in some cases, where the owner doesn’t want to grow. However, where they do it is holding them back. In any case, all businesses should be looking to grow at least a little just to overcome the effects of inflation!

So what’s the solution? Some say that the government should change the tax rules to benefit SMEs even more. Others might point out that accountants are well placed to help business owners put business strategy before tax strategy. However, both of these “solutions” abdicate responsibility. Governments will forever tinker with tax rules, shaving a bit here and adding a bit there. The overall result is added complexity, confusion and probably a ligher wallet. Tax advisers will prioritise minimising the tax bill because that’s their job and the tangible, immediate benefits show how good they are at it.

The solution then is for business owners to recognise that a successful business should pay taxes. That a successful person contributes to society by paying taxes. And to be successful means developing and implementing a business strategy that will achieve their goals not minimise tax.

With a business strategy in place, then a tax strategy can be applied to mimimise the tax liability of that strategy without strangling business growth.

So how do you create a business strategy? There are books written on the subject, but here are the essentials:

Define what you want to achieve, or start with the end in mind as they say. I don’t believe anyone really starts out wanting to build a sub-£78,000 turnover business. Many settle for that, but few start with that ambition. Starting with the end in mind allows you to pre-think what the business needs to look like in terms of turnover, profits, headcount, infrastructure, etc.

Look at what’s already available in the market and come up with something different. That might be a different target market, or a different way of delivering what you offer. But to avoid competing on price (like Jeanne) you must have something different to offer your target market, not just a little better, or smaller, or bigger, or faster, or whiter, but completely different.

Figure out which people would want to buy that difference and why they would buy it – why should they care enough to part with their hard-earned cash?

Figure out how to tell people about it and how they can get hold of it most easily.

Then create a plan to help you understand how the cashflow will be generated to achieve your goal. Too few business plans are written to aid understanding of the specific steps involved in achieving a goal and the risks associated with those steps. Write yours with those two things in mind.

Follow the plan step by step and adapt it regularly as you gather real world data to support or otherwise your business idea.

Discuss with your tax advisor/accountant how to minimise the tax liability of the plan and impress upon them that changing the plan is not an option.
If you’re already in business, it’s not too late to figure out a more effective strategy to a

The Relationship Between Human Resource Practices And Business Strategy In A Business Organization

The relationship between human resource practices and a company’s business strategy are aligned in many ways. The ultimate goal of the alignment is to use human capital as instrument to maximize the organization assets for the benefit of the stakeholders. Below are some of the relationship between human resource practices and business strategy.

STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Human resource practices create the process for the development of employees’ knowledge and the skill-set across the organization to promote its core competencies that support and maintain its competitive advantage in the industry. The term “strategic HRM” is the new template in the management of modern organization that is anchored on the concept that the most valuable asset an organization provides itself is HR, since it is the tool that is responsible for the coordination and implementation of other factors of production that spurs corporate performance journals

The business strategy adopts by an organization is meant to showcase how it intend to succeed by using the factors of production at its disposal to build a competitive advantage, strategy-business. Business strategy helps to identify the direction that the organization wishes to go in relation to its environment. Human resource strategies manage human resource so that the goals set by the organization can be achieved. The focus is directed on what the business intentions are as they relate to human resource policies and practices. Therefore, how human resource is spread across the organization’s units and departments, motivated, managed and retained will affect the performance outcome after the business strategy has been implemented. The relationship between business strategy and human resource practices also would determine the organization competitive and performance outcome.

A glimpse into Oya Erdil & Ayse Gunsel’s ‘BUSINESS STRATEGY AND HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGY- THE INTERACTION’ shows there is a relationship between human resource management practices and an organization business strategy, which also could be referred to as the business environment and organizational development. Another defining aspect of that relationship is the across the board acceptance that an organization’s human resource management practices have a link to the firm’s decision making process, in other words, the HR practices be closely aligned with the strategy of the whole business. While there is not much disagreement as pertaining to the relationship between HR practices and business strategy, there is a tendency not to acknowledge the deeper nature of the relationship. The theory of human resource management opined that should employees be considered and managed as a valued strategic asset, the organization in practice would be able to achieve a competitive advantage, and the outcome will be a superior performance. This again, means managing human resource in such a way that it will correspond to the business strategy, being that the goals and process of each of the strategy profiles are different.

According to Oya Erdil & Ayse Gunsel, this relationship is further entrenched when you look at how human resource practices are selected based on competitive strategy espoused by the organization. An organization that coordinates its business strategy and human resources policies and practices achieve a superior performance outcome than those that do not.

ALIGNING PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT TO STRATEGY AND CULTURE

As explained by Rob Gray’s ‘Aligning performance management with business strategy,’ some employers could be missing the key factor that links performance management to strategy and culture. For it is an organization’s prevailing culture and practices that will determine the optimum use of its valuable asset (human beings) when its business strategy is aligned with its human resource practices. The right tools are needed if employers are to succeed in aligning their human resource management to its business strategy. The era of using performance review and appraisal as the only tools for performance, management solutions have since been replicated by a complete suite of competency measurement tools. These tools are able to assist employees to understand the means and learning resources through which they can effectively develop their skills and talent. Technology is one of the enablers but needs commitment from top down that is important for a high performance culture.

TALENT MANAGEMENT

Edward E. Lawler lll’s, ‘What should HR Leaders Focus On In 2014′ gives a deep insight into how business entities could achieve a superior outcome for their shareholders. While technology is a valued enabler that spurs performance leading to superior outcome for an organization, another thing that should be a thing of focus for HR is the aspect of talent management that assesses the necessary skills every organization needs to implement its business strategy, the plan for recruitment and the management of critical talent. Even though, talent has long been determined to be important, it is of recent becoming more so given that many businesses are performing knowledge based work that is more complex, and with operations in the global markets. This has led to the situation of performance talent having a great impact on the organization’s bottom line. Google, Amazon, Apple, and other techs and service organizations have done a tremendous job of recruiting and managing people around the world that have the needed critical knowledge based skills. Their talented workforce have been able to perform well, differentiate their companies from competitors across industries which have translated to a pattern of communication that relays their type of employees and the jobs they offer.

INNOVATION

Innovation is another standard of performance management, Innovation.Tools.com, that when effectively coordinated with an organization business objectives lead to a superior performance outcome. When an organization devote a substantial amount of time to innovation and business strategy, and both are valued equally, promoted across the board, and well communicated, a culture would exist naturally which will foster a relationship of the two. The fostered culture creates a top down business objectives that are communicated across the board in the organization, that enable all units to focus in addressing the organization’s short and long-term goals. From then, it becomes the innovators’ task to forge an alignment of their activities in support of the organization’s goals. The various ways to naturally coordinate both camps is the joint development of technology/product, and business road maps that encourage discussion and debate, forging links that guides actions. Successful performance outcome are highlighted through internal business and fairs, using the avenue to raise visibility for long term opportunities.

DIVERSITY

Diversity in an organization plays a significant role in forging a link between performance management and business strategy. There is a business case for diversity in the organization based on the evidence and arguments that both believe that when diversity is leveraged in an organization, it can contribute to the achievement of the company’s goals an

Reasons To Have A Good Business Strategy

A business strategy is basically a documented plan mentioning how a company is setting out to reach to its business goals. Therefore, these strategies include different types of main principles, which outline the ways through which the companies can reach to their goals. For instance, the good business strategies define the ways to look at the expectations and requirements of clients, the ways to deal with the competitors and these also check the sustainability and the long-term growth of the companies.

A good business plan is also essential in guiding channels and resources, making decisions, defining directions and setting goals. Due to that reason, building strategic plans is well worth of the time. With the help of right strategies, businesses can meet with the opportunities and ongoing challenges.

There are actually many types of business strategies available, which can be used by both new and already established businesses to have healthy competition in the market. Most of the successful businesses generally have a history of functional and good strategies, which are set and followed strictly. Thus, it is necessary that once the strategies are drawn and enacted, the measures must be followed and put into that system.

Another big reason why having good strategies is necessary is that these offer the businesses the required time to get the sense about capabilities, how those are actually performing and whether the capabilities can actually help the businesses to grow.

Here are some other reasons why it is necessary to have good strategies for businesses:

A well defined strategy provides a guide on how a business is actually performing internally. Besides, this also defines how a company performs against the competition and the things that the company needs to stay relevant in the future.

A good business strategy is capable of creating a direction and a vision for the entire company. Actually, it is necessary for every person in a company to have some clear goals and to follow the mission or direction of the company. Good business strategies can offer these visions and can prevent the company people from losing sight of the aims of the companies.

The business strategies can also find the future opportunities and trends of the businesses. These can look at all the broader changes in the market like as social, political or technological changes and the consumer changes. Besides, these strategies can also develop the tactics so that the businesses can change and develop to suit to all the future changes.

4 Business Strategies You Probably Haven’t Thought About

The best business strategy is one that leverages a business’s strengths for the greatest profit and yields the highest return on investment. A business must identify and execute a clear strategy to beat the competition and survive in the long term.

Here are 4 business strategies you may not have thought about.

1. Growth Strategy

Many businesses plan to grow and increase their sales and profits. But there are certain methods businesses must use to implement a growth strategy. The method an enterprise uses to expand its business primarily depends on its financial situation, the competition, and even government regulations.

One type of growth strategy is market penetration. Businesses use a market penetration strategy when marketing existing products within the same market they’ve been marketing to before. If you want to grow and expand when using existing products and markets, increase your market share. And, one way to increase market share is by lowering prices.

2. Differentiation Strategy

Differentiation strategy involves making your products/services different from and more attractive than those of your competitors. To do this, you must consider the nature of your industry and of your products or services. This primarily depends on features, functionality, support, durability, and providing a brand image that your target audience values.

To execute the differentiation strategy successfully, you need to conduct extensive research, and you must have the ability to deliver high-quality products/services. Also, you’ll require an effective sales and marketing strategy to make sure the market understands the benefits offered by the differentiated products/services.

3. Exit Strategy

You’re probably focused on building your business, not the day you’ll leave it. And to some extent, an exit strategy sounds bad. However, the best reason for having an exit strategy is to plan how to capitalize on a good situation, instead of getting out of a bad one. An exit strategy allows you to run your business and focus your energy and efforts on things that make it better and more appealing to acquirers and buyers you target.

Whichever exit strategy you choose, start working on it early. Planning early gives you enough time to do it right and maximize your returns.

4. Pricing Strategy

Determining the right price for your products is the most crucial decision you’ll make as a business owner.

There are many factors that determine the right pricing strategy. Sometimes, having the lowest price is not a strong position for a business because customers are likely to perceive their products/services as low quality.

Equally, it’s crucial for companies to price their products and services effectively to avoid situations where their prices take a hit because of being relatively high compared to those of their competitors. Also,

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