Well, a belated Happy New Year to all readers of this.
Personally, being a bit of a sports fan, I’m extremely excited about the London Olympics. I know we also have the football European Championships, but lets be perfectly honest – it’s going to be another frustratingly disappointing tournament. We’ll most likely lose out to a bad decision, a sending off of a star player, or more than likely get knocked out on penalties at some stage! No doubt I’ll watch the competition and I hope we do well as one of my close friends runs a bar, and the longer we stay in it, the more cash he takes!!
The Olympics are a completely different matter. I for one am extremely proud to host this enormous event; I’m passionate about every sport and know that, at numerous stages, I’ll be watching my television crying with the athlete whilst listening to “God Save our Queen”! I have no issues over any amount of money being spent on this event and I’m certain it will be the greatest Olympics ever. We should be proud to be its host.
Well, that’s the “enjoyable” side of 2012 over with…what about business? I’m not really qualified enough to blog about World economics, the UK financial crisis, Eurozone, etc…so I won’t. What I’ve read and heard is that this is going to be another tough year, possibly tougher than the last few years. As such, it’s a case of “digging in” and battling through. As a Company, we have become much “leaner” than we were; austerity measures kicked in at the beginning of 2011, and we must continue to take a very hard look at all our expenditure.
Assuming we have this under control, the other thing we must concentrate on is income…not only retaining what we have, but growing our business organically. It’s for my Board and my team to come up with answers. Perhaps a new sales team, lower premiums for our clients, new product set, etc… All of these things have cost implications or we are reliant on Insurers for their backing to provide these.
We will come up with lots of ideas, but the things we will never knowingly reduce, is the high level of customer service, our business insurance expertise and the role of always fighting our customer’s corner!
Good luck to everyone.
