7 Biggest Business Challenges that Enterprises Will Face in 2020, According to Top CEOs

New Year has just going to start. Businesses are busy in making big plans for 2020. They might be setting goals and creating strategies that would help them achieve these goals. Unfortunately, what most businesses don’t focus on hurdles they will face that will hinder their progress towards their goal.

What’s more, these obstacles might be different for every business. Some might consider scaling as a challenge while other might think of regulations hard to comply. To give you a better idea about the biggest challenges that businesses will face in 2020, we ask the business gurus about their opinion.

Here is what top CEOs think about it.

1️⃣ Scaling Without Compromising on Culture

Ask any business, whether big or small, they will tell you that they want to expand their business operations and enter into new markets. They want to launch new products and attract new customers from different parts of the world. What they don’t realize is that there are somethings that are more important than scaling their business and one of them is company culture. You don’t want to be growing your business at the cost of your company culture.

Viven Shen, CEO of Juni Learning, a coding startup agrees to this notion. Here is what she had to say,

“Day in and day out, I’m constantly putting out fires which makes it a challenge to stay focused on the big picture, especially when it comes to building and maintaining our company’s culture.” She further adds, “As a fast-growing company, we know that the level of service and engagement we provide could easily be compromised. I’m making it a priority to ensure that we hold ourselves accountable every step of the way.”

2️⃣ Increasing Your Sales Without Spending Too Much

Most business thinks that increasing their sales is the primary objective that they have to achieve to make it big. After all, they are in business to make profits, right. For this, they do everything in their powers including spending tons of money on marketing, recruiting more sales reps etc. Well, everyone can boost their sales numbers with a big marketing budget at their disposal. The real challenges businesses will face in 2020 will be to increase sales while staying lean.

Here is what CEO of Dibs, fitness tech startup has to say,

“We sell to small and medium-sized businesses, so we can’t afford to have a huge sales force. That means that our offer needs to sell itself. We have to communicate really clearly and iterate constantly to ensure we’re making it easy for busy business owners to understand the value of our service.”

3️⃣ Tweaking Your Company Mission

Businesses are evolving with each passing day. What was once an integral part of your business strategy is no where to be found today. In such a dynamic business world, how can you succeed with a static and fixed mission? Well, you can not. As your business evolve, you should make changes to your mission statement as well.

Karla Monterroso, CEO of Code2040, is the big advocate of this changing your mission with the business environment. Sharing her experience, she said,

“Code2040 is really evolving. We are going from being a pipeline organization to one that addresses the structural barriers to inclusion. It’s going to be my job that our community understands the importance and urgency of the shift.”

4️⃣ Limiting the Use of Communication Tools

Shocked? I don’t blame you. Most people you meet online and offline, will tell you the benefits of communication tools and they are right too. Communication tools have their advantages but if you go overboard with its use, they will start to cast negative shadow on your productivity. That is where a smart task management software can come in handy. How can you keep using communication tools without hampering productivity?

Falon Fatimi, CEO of Node.io, an AI startup has a solution. According to her,

“Defining effective guardrails around communication across tools like Slack and email is especially critical as we grow, so we don’t impact productivity–and ensure healthy and direct communication is happening via appropriate channels.”

5️⃣ Make People Believe in Your Cause

Probably the most daunting challenge for businesses would be to convince their customers and make them believe in philosophies they believe in. No matter what cause your business support, you will find it difficult to find support from the people because there is a lack of trust. You will have to build trust and establish a stronger connection with your customers in order to get them onboard for a positive cause.

Michelle Nunn, CEO of Care shares the biggest business challenge she is facing,

“As the CEO of a poverty-fighting organization, my biggest challenge will be maintaining the momentum we’ve gained in the war against poverty and injustice around the world.”

Despite the odds, she advises business leaders to push their weight behind good causes as it is their corporate social responsibility.

6️⃣ Delegating Work to Others

Instead of micro managing your employees and giving them a message that you don’t have faith in their capabilities, it is better to delegate work to others and stop micromanaging them. The more freedom you offer your employees, the more they will showcase their talent and achieve their true potential.

Hussein Fazal, CEO of SnapTravel find it tough to wear different hats but he loves to take on the challenge. He said,

“I need to spend more time working on strategic initiatives–which are often outside of the office–versus working in the day-to-day weeds in the business. I love being a hands-on business operator, which makes this shift quite challenging.”

7️⃣ Complying with Regulations

Last but certainly not the least is complying with standards and following all the rules and regulations. No one can deny the fact the screws are being tightened as far as regulations are concerned. Regulatory bodies are implementing strict rules on companies to ensure that they don’t dwindle away from the path. Things get even worse if your business operate in a dark industry.

Michael Steinmetz, CEO of Flow Kana, a cannabis startup said,

“The cannabis industry has so many challenges that our team and industry are navigating every day, from banking to a lack of external services to aggressive regulation. The reality is, this is the business we are in, so we are equipped to handle those types of challenges. What we need to be laser focused on is ensuring that Flow Kana is scaling as fast as possible to meet the consumer demand–and we are growing in the right type of way, prioritizing quality, people, and community.”

What do you think will be the biggest business challenge that will impact the enterprise world in 2020? Feel free to share your opinion with us in the comments section below!

Irfan Ak is a digital marketing manager at Branex & a guest blogger on various websites. He is a passionate digital strategist. He has worked with various other brands and created value for them.

CakeHR is an award-winning HR software company that provides attendance, performance and recruitment management for customers worldwide. More information at www.cake.hr