With the Christmas season and final quarter of the financial year approaching there is much to draw attention and focus forward. Looking forward, calculating the next strategic move or identifying the next innovation keeps us poised to grasp new opportunities and growth.

But reflecting on the past can also be a critical and effective tool in shaping a business’s future and direction.   Taking stock and examining the journey your business has taken in the last 12 months. Taking it even further back to a company’s origin is also a great way find inspiration for your future trajectory.

When looking back it can be easy to be preoccupied by the things that didn’t work so well – but developing and sustaining strategies for the future also means building on the positives.

Gathering insights, sharing knowledge, executing planning and effective communication drives growth and is at the heart of businesses’ successful marketing and PR, which is why it’s embedded in our work.

• Review your lessons learned: as well as looking back at each project or campaign individually, take a look back at the lessons learned collectively. Are you really taking stock and making changes?
• Recognise your failures – and embrace them! Don’t just focus on the successes it’s important to acknowledge and assess the failures. Working together highlighting and sharing failures or business disappointments in an open and no-blame culture can foster new ways of working and develop successful strategies.
• Review and preview with structure: Working within a framework and methodology ensures that your time is efficiently spent and you’re able to monitor your analysis over time. We recently formally integrated SOSTAC® Certified Planner consultancy into our business portfolio enabling us to deliver this is strategic and targeted marketing tool direct to clients.

Sustained growth, engaging new markets, managing increasing costs, uncertainty in international markets and Brexit – there has been much for focus the mind in 2018 across all industrial sectors and with 2019 shaping up to be a year of considerable change is it time for you to glance back and prepare to move forward?