By Dave Hickey As a leader of a growing or mature business your focus needs to be on developing new products or markets, improving efficiency or service and encouraging the team around you to use their expertise to meet today’s, as well as tomorrow’s, challenges. You know you can’t do everything, but it’s difficult to …
OUTSOURCING CAN GIVE BUSINESS LEADERS THE TIME TO FOCUS ON WHAT THEY DO BEST Read More »
By Dave Hickey I’ve written before on how I have ‘returned to my roots’ at DHKN after a gap of 38 years. I didn’t realise that a part of me physically remained here until DHKN’s Robert Lohan, Director of Tax Planning, came into my office looking for an old tax reference book. It turns out …
By Dave Hickey When energy costs are increasing by 80% in a quarter, making small adjustments to your energy consumption may feel like a futile exercise – the proverbial Sisyphean* task. While we have little influence on the price we’re charged for energy we can control how much of it we use. Controlling usage There …
SMALL SAVINGS MAY HELP TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS’ LIGHTS ON Read More »
By Dave Hickey Every business should have a business plan. Unfortunately, despite the fact that many of the underlying businesses are viable, the vast majority of plans are hardly worth the paper they’re printed on. Most “bad” business plans share one or more of the problems outlined in previous post here (1-5) or below (6-10): …
PLAN NOW TO MINIMISE YOUR 2021 & 2022 TAX BILLS By Dave Hickey It’s Race Week in Galway and, as ever, I was told yesterday: “We won’t feel it now until Christmas”. While it’s still only July, there is something to be said to looking ahead to the end of 2022 to see what can …
By Dave Hickey Recently someone asked me why she needed a business plan if she was getting all the funding she needed from friends and relatives. It appeared to me as if she was thinking of a business plan as just a fund-raising tool. In fact, a business plan is much more than that: It’s …
By Dave Hickey In our previous post we looked at some of the underlying challenges of inflation and interest rate rises. Today, three of DHKN’s experts focus on how you can take action now to develop plans to deal with the potential outcomes over the next couple of years. Stephen Crowley, Partner DHKN “The most …
SIX ACTIONS TO DEAL WITH INFLATION AND INTEREST RATE RISES Read More »
By Dave Hickey What’s my break-even point? Can I afford to pay salaries this month? What margin should I be aiming for on this new product/service? Many entrepreneurs and managers can’t answer questions like these because they haven’t yet acquired the necessary financial intelligence. Nobody gave them a test in finance skills when they decided …
By Dave Hickey What is the Gender Pay Gap? The Gender Pay Gap is the difference between what is earned on average by women and men based on average gross hourly earnings of all paid employees. It doesn’t distinguish between job types, experience, qualifications or working patterns. A Gender Pay Gap in an organisation does not, …
By Dave Hickey This is part of a piece I wrote almost two years ago about ‘staying on top of the numbers’. Too much of it is still relevant. In Ireland we’re great at keeping score. Whether it’s in sport, socially (whose round is it?) or in family life (whose turn to do the dishes?). …
KEEPING SCORE IS JUST AS IMPORTANT IN BUSINESS AS IN SPORT Read More »
