Challenges All Businesses Face — Yours Might Too!

published Feb 17, 2020
1 min read

Business Challenges

Running a business is getting tougher every day. With the rise of e-commerce, online advertising and more, businesses are facing more problems than ever before. The question that arises is, what are the toughest challenges businesses face today? Below, we look at some of them.

Increased Competition

Everybody wants to start a business. With the rise in popularity of platforms like WordPress and Shopify, it is now easier than ever to start a business. This means there is more competition among businesses than ever before. Businesses can also find experts to help them run their operation, which makes it even harder for companies that do not have such resources at their disposal.

Increased Costs

The costs of running a business have been on an upward trajectory for some time now. There are many fees and costs for business owners to think about. If you own a business, you know that card processing fees can eat into your margins. That is why a company like Merchant Advice Service is invaluable for business owners. They will advise you on the best merchant services options and also help you apply for merchant services if your business is in a niche that is considered high risk.

Uncertainty

When regulations change, they affect nearly all businesses and industries. Changing energy, financial, and environmental policies are issues business owners have to deal with. When these regulations change, they often cost businesses a lot of money to adapt and this causes the owners unending headaches.

Cash and Resource Management

A business cannot run without money. If you have a lot of money coming in and most of it is going out on expenses, you might not be in business for too long. When business owners do not keep an eye on cash flow or do not focus on revenue generation and growth, companies get into financial trouble.

In addition to cash, other resources like land and employees are also strained. Land is getting more expensive, thereby making it harder to build new factories, and poaching of employees is a problem for most companies. Most of these poached employees are usually highly-qualified and their leaving could make a business crumble.

Dwindling Customer Loyalty

Because of the increase in the number of businesses available to customers, customer loyalty is dwindling. Now customers just buy from businesses that are the most convenient for them. This means that the number of repeat customers is also falling and with it the ability of companies to make money.

Increase in advertising spending also causes customers to switch the businesses they buy from and has the added disadvantage of eating into a company’s revenue.

Finding the Right Staff

Businesses want employees who are loyal, who will stay with the company, and who agree with the vision and direction of a company. Finding tens or even hundreds of employees who tick all three boxes is getting harder. This is not a problem for small businesses that need a handful of employees but could be one for companies that need a lot of manpower.

The challenges that businesses face are growing by the day, and uncertainty, competition and resource management issues are some of the biggest. The unfortunate truth is that there could be many more new challenges in the future that we cannot envision today.