5 New Challenges Facing Small Businesses In 2023 And Beyond

The hurdles that small businesses have to overcome are always altering, and when one falls by the wayside, another will crop up to take its place.

This makes preparing to encompass them in your strategies, and adapt your operations to cope effectively, a must for any small business decision-maker.

So with that in mind, let’s go through some of the challenges that await your organization, and what impact they might have this year.

Adapting To A Growing Remote Workforce

Ensuring that employees are able to work remotely, with all of the necessary resources available at their fingertips, is not just something that multinationals have to offer.

Companies across the spectrum must accept the ongoing reality of remote work, not only to keep current team members onboard, but also to satisfy the expectations of the next generation of employees.

As part of this, you must consider investing in cloud-based software, rather than being reliant on in-house, locally installed programs to fuel productivity and collaboration.

It’s also important to provide access to reliable internet connections, perhaps including the cost of upgrading home services in your budget, rather than expecting team members to shoulder this themselves.

Most importantly, having an effective communication plan in place between remote teams is the key to optimizing their ability to thrive.

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Dealing With Inflation And Economic Uncertainty

We remain in a rocky period for both the national and global economy, with the knock-on effect of various events resulting in persistent rises in inflation.

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This in turn means that it’s more expensive for businesses to cover staffing costs, let alone deal with the price hikes and delays that are still causing conundrums in the supply chain.

Then there’s the hit to consumer spending which is always tied to such periods of peril.

People aren’t putting their hands in their pockets for fear of future financial hits, or because they simply don’t have as much disposable income.

Small businesses have to look for ways to cut costs in response to this, whether that’s through trimming the fat on their current operations, scaling back expansion plans, or rethinking the makeup of products and services to make compromises that will allow them to survive until brighter days return.

Fedex Shipping Rates Are Going Up

The FedEx rate increase of 2023 is another example of the growing cost of doing business at the moment, and indicates that companies which rely on this or any other service for shipping goods to customers will be paying more for the privilege.

This is a universal issue, one which means businesses of all sizes are having to put up their own prices in response, effectively passing this on to the customer.

Of course it could be argued that this universality is a good thing, since it means customers are already prepared for price hikes, because they’ve experienced them across the entire spending spectrum already.

How this plays out in the long term is less clear, but means that factoring in the likelihood of further logistics cost increases in the short to medium term makes sense.

Artificial Intelligence Is Here

AI tools represent both a threat and an opportunity in the business world, with this double edged sword dangling over small businesses.

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On the one hand, the potential for the likes of ChatGPT and its cohorts to catalyze small-scale operations and level the playing field is huge.

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On the other, companies in certain industries risk being rendered entirely redundant by automated tools.

This is an area no business can afford to ignore, and one whose trajectory remains shrouded in debate and controversy.

Encompassing Diversity & Inclusion In Company Culture

The last thing to think about is how modern workplaces must be inclusive, and company cultures adapted to meet the diverse needs and backgrounds of the next generation of employees, if businesses are to grow and prosper.

As Millennials move into management roles and Gen Z steps in to fill entry level positions, this shift should be simpler to handle in larger organizations, but could be a bit more of a struggle to get right in smaller firms.

Having clear policies in place, and also taking note of legal requirements that govern employee rights in this regard, will stand you in good stead going forward.

Wrapping Up

The challenges in the path of small businesses may be significant, but they are not insurmountable.

Planning and persistence are the two tools which will make all organizations robust enough to soldier on.

Jonathon Spire

Jonathon Spire

Tech Blogger at Jonathon Spire

My diverse background started with my computer science degree, and later progressed to building laptops and accessories. And now, for the last 7 years, I have been a social media marketing specialist and business growth consultant.

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Jonathon Spire

I blog about a range of tech topics.

For the last 7 years I have been a social media marketing specialist and business growth consultant, so I write about those the most.

Full transparency: I do review a lot of services and I try to do it as objectively as possible; I give honest feedback and only promote services I believe truly work (for which I may or may not receive a commission) – if you are a service owner and you think I have made a mistake then please let me know in the comments section.

– Jon