If you are a small business owner, or if your company is just starting its development in the market, then most likely you are forced to constantly act in conditions of uncertainty. Business is a risk in itself, and any planning never means that events will develop according to the foreseen scenario. And this is especially painful for small and new companies that are already forced to operate in conditions of limited resources. Usually, the owners of such a business try to plan all expenses in advance, however, there is a more reasonable way to distribute your finances. This is a Zero-based Budgeting approach, and in this article, we will tell who it suits and why you should pay attention to this financial strategy.
The Essence of Zero-based Budgeting
So, before talking about the reasons why Zero-based Budgeting is worth considering, it will be wise to understand the essence of this approach. The first association that arises is to get any benefit for the business without investment, for example, to attract new members from social networks. In this case, the only thing you spend is time.
But in fact, the essence of the Zero-based Budgeting approach is somewhat different. You will still need to invest, but the difference will be how you do it. Zero-based Budgeting means you are not planning any future expenses. If, as a general rule, at the end of each year, companies usually create and provide budgets for the next year, for example, lay budgets for production and advertising, then, in this case, this is not necessary. This does not need to be done in advance.
The essence of the Zero-based Budgeting approach is that you invest in the business exactly as much as you need to invest at the current time, depending on current goals and external conditions. This approach may even seem unreasonable since most companies are still used to planning strategies and expenses. But in practice, it turns out that this also has a right to exist, and that’s why.
Make More Flexible Financial Decisions
Planning ahead is of course good. This gives a warm feeling of stability, predictability, and confidence that events will develop exactly according to your plan. However, the business environment may be different.
When a certain item of expenditure is clearly limited, you will, of course, be glad if the circumstances change in such a way that you need less money than you planned. But what if everything turns in the other direction?
Spending a smaller amount is much easier than finding a supply of money for unforeseen expenses. And if you planned everything to the last penny, and took into account the long term, then you simply do not have the resource left to respond more flexibly.
The Zero-based Budgeting approach gives you this flexibility. You can make financial decisions based on current reality, and not from a preliminary plan, which may turn out to be erroneous.
Ideal for a Small Business That Operates in a Dynamically Changing Environment
It may seem that Zero-based Budgeting is suitable for all types of businesses, but in some cases, the practice still proves the opposite. This way of distributing finances is ideal for small companies that are just starting their development, plus they are in a very dynamic environment when it is practically impossible to make extremely accurate forecasts. This is an ideal technique in the period when the company is just beginning to grope its individual approaches to doing business, as well as if it was created in conditions of limited finances, as most often happens.
Make Spending More Transparent and Targeted
It seems that pre-planning makes all expenses transparent and targeted. However, when the situation changes and the distribution of finances is already not going according to plan, it becomes much more difficult to track the amount of money spent and the goals for which they were spent.
Following the Zero-based Budgeting approach, you completely control the situation and allocate from the budget exactly the amount that is needed at the current time for the most urgent goal. This makes all your expenses more transparent and targeted. And you are at the same time insured both from overspending and from a lack of budget because each time you react to a really arising need, and not to a hypothetical one.
The Zero-Based Approach Is Perfect for Marketing Strategy
Do you know what changes most often? These are the preferences and opinions of customers. Therefore, the Zero-based approach is ideal for marketing. Since this method of distributing finances gives you maximum flexibility, from the point of view of marketing, you can quickly adapt and change your strategies if the market situation begins to change. Agree, it would be unreasonable to spend a large amount on advertising in order to understand that it did not work. Zero-based budgeting makes it possible to invest only in what really works, and at the same time, you are not limited by any framework.
Due to flexibility, you can remove one item of expenses, which turned out to be superfluous, and add the freed up money for those purposes, the implementation of which will give you a bigger and better result.
If You Still Need a Reference Point
As you already understood, Zero-based budgeting does not mean business development without financial resources. This means developing a business with the most competent distribution, instant response to changes, a thorough assessment of each dollar invested and the result that it yields, plus maximum flexibility in making financial decisions. That is, you need money in any case – the only question is how to distribute it.
However, practice shows that with a flexible budget, there are situations when the current conditions require you to make more investments than you can afford at the moment. And when such a decision is really justified, you do not need to give up an additional opportunity for business development. You can always take a quick loan on the Lendgenius website and distribute it as correctly as possible, solving current business problems. And even if you don’t have the resource to start now, a small loan can be a good start for your business, especially if you follow the Zero-based budgeting approach.