Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies
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Knowing what’s going on with demographic changes and movements helps you plan for the demand for your company’s products and services as well as labor issues. For example, sometimes seemingly unexplainable lulls or growth spurts, especially in the retail and restaurant industries, can be explained by understanding the changes in the demographics.

Here are the big movements that may impact every U.S. business:

  • Increasing population: By 2050, the global population is estimated to reach 9.2 billion people.

  • Home healthcare services: By 2020, nearly 14 million people in the United States will be over the age of 85, and 84 percent of them will want to continue living at home. To do that, more than half will need assistance with daily living activities.

  • Increasing diversity: Minorities, primarily the growing role of the Hispanics in the United States, will affect business demographics. The population of Hispanic or Latino origin will rise from 12.6 percent in 2000 to just under 25 percent in 2020 and 30 percent in 2050. These statistics represent that one in every three persons will be Hispanic.

  • Greater economic achievement by women: By 2020, one in every three workers will be a woman. According to the workplace-research group, “Fortune 500 companies with the most women in senior management had a higher return on equity.”

  • Generational divide: By 2020, businesses will have to address the disparity in differing work styles between semi-retired baby boomers and younger generations (Gen X and Millennials). The generational divide is a growing issue in the business culture.

Right at Home has been riding the growing trend of home healthcare services since 1995. The company grew 27 percent in 2010, posting $127 million in revenue with 25,000 clients in the U.S., U.K., and Brazil. Its growth strategy through franchising contributes to the rapid expansion as other savvy business people also want to get in on this trend.

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Erica Olsen is cofounder and COO of M3 Planning, Inc., a firm dedicated to developing and executing strategy. M3 provides consulting and facilitation services, as well as hosts products and tools such as MyStrategicPlan for leaders with big ideas who want to empower and focus their teams to achieve them.

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