It’s that critical point in the year when many organisations are thinking about their strategic plans for 2025. Some are fully throttled in their plans, finalising targets, campaigns and initiatives and others are just beginning to piece thoughts together to get a sense of direction. Wherever your organisation in the process, have you stopped to think about your internal and external plans? It sounds obvious but organisations often fixate exclusively on their external plans that attribute directly to revenue and profits but having a comprehensive plan for yourself and your teams could be the key driver to next year’s success.
At Challenge Marketing, we always approach matters of business and workforce from the basis of our belief system, that engagement is everything. So, when it comes to planning for the following year, we start with internally – engaging with and creating our vision for the team and network first and foremost. This then acts as the underpinning for building our goals and strategic aims for the coming year. We’ll share our approach for 2025 planning and all upcoming yearly planning and why it’s proven effective for us.
An organisation’s workforce planning for the upcoming year will of course intrinsically link internal and external goals, initiatives and targets. However, adopting a people-centred initiative to planning means that you’re putting the key driver of a business, its people in a primary position to give direction from their vantage point. Starting internally with teams; first as individuals, then as departments and finally as one team, one entity.
Starting with the people
Before the end of the year, we carry out in-depth 121s with our workforce. This is different to usual 121s which tend to focus on tasks, challenges, performance and deliverables. These sessions are carried out by our senior leadership team, who seek to understand the individual’s goals, passion projects, and areas for where we as a company could collectively improve in the new year. This gives our senior leadership a wealth of perspective and insight where they otherwise may not have visibility. It helps us at Challenge also get to know each member of the team and their professional archetype better. We can then better support them in their professional goals and passion projects by seeing where we can also align them with strategic aims. For example, if a team member wants to focus on Environment Social and Governance (ESG) as an area of personal interest, we facilitate their training to become more conversant on the topic and make them the lead in the company for ESG initiatives.
Lucy Allen, Challenge’s Founder and CEO also ensures that she offers 121s with all that would like one. As the leader of an organisation, being out of touch can be an easy but highly dangerous place to slip into. A leader may think they know the company culture, and the needs of the business. However, not being heavily involved in the day-to-day of the business can mean there’s a discrepancy between a leader’s perception and the reality. Conducting such meetings means that the business needs can be assessed thoroughly, uncovering whether employees have the skills necessary for the future, upskilling and reskilling demands and culture initiatives that will better the business. If the workforce feels fulfilled and valued because they are included as a pivotal aspect of 2025 planning, then it creates a stronger connected team, ultimately leading to higher propensity to work towards the goals for the upcoming year.
Brain dump to Brainstorm
There are some critical trends for 2025 that will have an impact on the workforce, such as an emerging multi-generational workforce, stark technological disruption and talent shortages. Holding a whole team meeting, can help stay ahead of these trends by giving everyone in the organisation an opportunity to come together and share their ideas and concerns. Bringing the workforce into one space means that cross-generational team can interact with each other, adapting to each’s working styles, expectations and learning to understand the differing motivations. This can start as an unstructured, free-flowing conversation, at Challenge we, open the floor for discussion and allow themes to emerge. These themes are taken forward to addressed as part of the plan for the following year.
Once an internal audit has been completed, it’s time to start thinking about the external factors pertaining to the business, such as the happenings in industry and the external market.
2025 is forecasted the rapidly evolving technological landscape, changing consumer behaviour, economic volatility, and increasing emphasis on sustainability and social responsibility require a dynamic and adaptive mindset.
Market and Industry Analysis
Trend Identification: It’s important to stay on top of macroeconomic and industry trends that could impact your business. For example, the rise of AI, automation, sustainability, and e-commerce are likely to play significant roles in shaping markets in 2025. In order to stay on top of trends, at Challenge, we proactively look for opportunities to learn and education ourselves by subscribing to whitepapers, attending webinars and enrolling on online courses. This means that when it comes to 2025 planning, there’s less of a steep learning curve and more time to create a plan of action based on the market knowledge.
Competitor Benchmarking: Understanding how competitors are positioning themselves, their latest products and services and marketing plays can reveal both threats and opportunities. When approaching 2025 planning, analysing competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, product offerings, pricing strategies, and customer satisfaction levels is imperative in measuring how you’re performing as a business.
Customer-Centricity
Engagement is everything and the changes to consumer preferences are supporting this. As consumers become more digitally savvy, consuming media through the means of TikTok, Instagram and X, businesses must prioritise customer-centric strategies. Consumers in 2025 are expected to demand personalised experiences, ethical sourcing, and more transparent business practices. In offering Personalised Video Marketing as a service, part of our 2025 plans have been focussed on where we can create more personalised experiences for our clients and prospects, using the data we have at our disposal.
If you gather data to understand your customer’s preferences and buying behaviour, you should also gather their feedback data. Continuously gathering and analysing customer feedback through surveys, social media, and customer support interactions can offer valuable insights into shifting expectations and potential areas for improvement for 2025 and beyond. You may uncover that there is a pressing issue that will need addressing immediately or be surprised by the level of awareness and understanding of your business that your customers have, particularly if you operate in the B2B space.
Building resilience
The best and most thorough planning doesn’t always fortify against unforeseeable challenges. Often sound plans can be executed poorly, or circumstances outside of our own realm of control cause disruption. Although uncertainty is inevitable, but businesses can prepare by building resilience and adopting an agile approach to decision-making when planning for 2025.
Best-Case and Worst-Case Scenarios
When starting our own 2025 planning at Challenge, we grounded ourselves with a sense of optimism balanced with realism which looked like planning for the best-case and worst-case scenario. In strategic planning for 2025, it’s wise for businesses to develop scenario planning frameworks that outline potential future conditions. This will equip you to be prepared for both growth and challenging downturns, such as economic shifts or supply chain disruptions and shortages but avoiding taking actions such as staff redundancies and cutbacks to logistical resources such as office space. Furthermore, as uncertainty is always present due to changing market conditions, strategies for 2025 should be adaptable, enabling rapid pivots when necessary.
2025 strategic planning can be a process that is also reflective and forward-thinking and approached with an attitude of excitement and readiness and opposed to fear and panic. Focussing on your internal team plans initially can be a game changer in not only what your 2025 vision is comprised of, but how you choose to execute these plans. By preparing for various scenarios, analysing the market, and continually adapting to change, businesses will not only survive but thrive in the fast-paced and evolving business landscape of 2025. If you need support with your 2025 planning, chat to us – we’d love to help.
