It’s grim, but 18% of small businesses in the US fail within their first year; this increases to 50% after five years, and 65% after 10.
Often, there are outside factors that lead to company closures. But in many other cases, a lack of foresight is what ultimately spells doom.
This means that you can better yourself as a small business owner, and therefore, increase the likelihood of your brand withstanding the tests of time.
To do so, you should adopt an enterprise mindset.
What is this and what skills do you need for it? Read on to find out.
What Is an Enterprise Mindset?
An enterprise mindset is an ability to see the big picture. More specifically, it’s acknowledging every part of the business for long-term decision-making.
All too often, business owners implement changes based on what’s best for one team or department. While they may initially have good results, these changes can end up hurting the company as a whole.
An enterprise mindset allows you to break away from siloed thinking. From there, you’ll also need to know how to set up a business, which you can do easily with Business Anywhere. And as a result, you can develop long-term strategies that have it going strong.
What Skills Are Needed for Enterprise Thinking?
While a lucky few may already have an enterprise mindset, most others will have to develop the skills that reinforce this perspective.
Here are the key ones you need to focus on.
Strategic Thinking
Obviously, you’ll need to have strategic thinking to plan for the long term. Otherwise, everything you do will be short-sighted, and it can be risky in the grand scheme of things.
If you’re not a natural strategic thinker, then make a conscious effort to do things like analyze trends. This can help you make good decisions that align with these trends and achieve your end goals.
Leadership
Without leadership skills, it’ll be difficult to unify your business and move it toward common goals. You should be able to communicate your vision clearly, as well as inspire and motivate your company.
With the mindset of a leader, you’ll lead your teams in a unified manner, meaning you’ll see noticeable results in no time.
Business Savvy
You can be confident as a business owner, but without the knowledge to back up your decisions, things can take a bad turn quickly. Being business savvy goes hand-in-hand with strategic thinking, and there’s no way around it.
To build business acumen, you’ll need to study the financial, market, and operational aspects of your company. From there, you can make informed choices that aren’t as risky.
Adaptability
The longevity of anything depends significantly on flexibility and adaptability. Stagnation is a weakness that’ll kill any business.
It’s understandable that you value your current business strategies and spent a lot of time and effort to develop them. But the reality is, times always change, and if you don’t change with them, then you’ll be left behind.
The ability to pivot to new ideas to mitigate changes and challenges is the cornerstone of an enterprise mindset.
Innovation
On that note, to adapt, you must be able to innovate. Both new opportunities and challenges will arise over the years, and an innovative mind will help you find creative ways to address them.
Even if you believe that your current offerings are perfect, there’s always room for improvement and expansion. Being stubborn and stuck in old thinking will only hurt your business.
Boldness
Even though you want to minimize risk with an enterprise mindset, you don’t want to shy away from it either. However, that doesn’t mean you should make brash decisions that are also unfounded.
Instead, take the other skills, and combine them to take calculated risks. These bold choices may pay off and drive both growth and success for your business.
Collaboration
Achieving long-term success can be challenging to do on your own. Although it’s possible, it’s better if you work with others and build meaningful relationships.
Collaborations allow you to leverage different perspectives, as well as take advantage of various skills to achieve common goals.
How to Grow an Enterprise Mindset
Now you know the skills to hone in on and grow. Next, you should combine them with the right attitude.
Below are the essential ways to grow your enterprise mindset.
Be Customer-Centric
If you make your customers’ needs and concerns your top priority, then this can help you avoid siloed thinking. Keep their entire journey in mind when weighing your options, and you’ll see customer retention grow.
Learn Other Business Functions
A one-track mind as a business owner won’t get you anywhere. Not only will your skills be limited, but you’ll also make decisions that are more on the granular level.
Be proactive and speak with people from various business functions in your company. This has the additional benefit of growing cross-functional relationships and eliminating silos.
Scale Back Your Perspective
Learning other business functions will be beneficial here; you won’t be stuck on your own anymore, which allows you to zoom out for a larger perspective of your company.
View it as an entire ecosystem and understand what drives both profits and losses. Make choices with consideration as to how they’ll affect things throughout each connected part.
Reinforce Teamwork and Unity
It’s inevitable that you’ll butt heads with other stakeholders. This makes it even more critical for you to reinforce a sense of unity in your business, especially if it seems like people want different things.
Verbally reiterate that everyone’s invested in the company’s success, as well as the common goals you have. Be transparent about how reaching one goal may impact another.
Start Developing an Enterprise Mindset
An enterprise mindset is crucial to your company’s survival. While short-term objectives seem to be propelling your business to success, what’s important is how you handle things in the long run.
By learning the needed attitude and skills, you’ll be able to plan for the future and ensure security and prosperity.
Do you now have the right business mindset but no actual business yet? Then let Business anywhere help. Sign up with us and we’ll assist with company formation and more.
