FOREWORD

Having spent the last couple of weeks closing out the financials for 2022/23 and working with the team planning 2023/24, what could have been different?

Now is the time to make sure we have things in order for 2024! Its April, the beginning of the tax year for the selfemployed and for many businesses which align themselves with the financial year For us it’s about the strategy, brand, and reach. Ensuring both internal and external factors are considered, not just about what we want to achieve but looking at what our community needs.

In addition, we do a fair amount of voluntary work, and this too needs to be factored as part of the time commitment and purpose. As it happens, doing less isn’t really part of our DNA - however doing things smarter and sharing the load is paramount. In the good old days when I delivered the business start-up training, we had a session just about volunteering as almost all the cohort wanted to give something back, a trait commonly found in the Armed Forces community.

As we have done, do take time to put a volunteering session to work in line with your overall business goals for the new financial year. Perhaps a Masterclass on this with XFE is worth doing. One for the team to action!

It seems the talk of ESG (Environment, Social Value and Governance) throughout the business community nowadays is something new For those experienced business leaders with morals and a conscious, ESG has always been a priority.

What is now evident is that this makes a difference to how others perceive you. In a world of increasing collaboration and competition it has never been so important to demonstrate your credentials and your values.

Governance for many will relate directly to money and financial reporting which we have all had to do throughout our business careers, as these systems and protocols have been in place for decades. But now good governance extends to; the environment, the communities we serve, our own people, processes, products/services, and systems.

I’ve really enjoyed exploring these themes recently with some of our Big Business partners to make sense of what this means to the SME community. There are a few articles in this edition which I hope will stimulate some ESG debate! Let me know

Ren Kapur MBE CEO, X-Forces Enterprise