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What’s Your Business Resolution for 2017?

What’s Your Business Resolution for 2017?

We asked five of our top business leaders what their biggest challenge or challenges will be in 2017, and how they will approach it. They’ll get you thinking about your own business resolution in 2017! Here’s what they had to say:

Michael Hyatt

“Our biggest challenge at BlueCat for 2017 is hiring more great people. But, that’s been our issue previous years and will almost certainly always be our biggest issue in the coming years. The truth is that a great employee is free — we don’t worry about what we pay people since great people pay for themselves many times over. Today, everyone is being rated — employees and companies alike, just check out glassdoor.com. Not only is everyone being rated, but we are forever challenged to offer our people as much autonomy and purpose as we can. People are people and they want more than just a paycheque. They want to be part of something bigger and achieve some real greatness. We find that by allowing people to create, build and even volunteer on our dime outside of the company truly helps.”

Nicole Verkindt

“The biggest challenge I am facing in my business in 2017 is hiring more skilled developers. OMX is an online platform, built in the latest version of Ruby on Rails (that’s the language it is written in — the same language as huge platforms such as Linkedin). Hiring technical engineers is becoming more and more competitive, with huge technology businesses hiring out of Canada (and paying in USD), and also setting up in Canada and hiring locally. Luckily, we are small and growing, so we can pitch being a part of something really exciting and challenging and having a level of independence (not being stuck in an assembly line of developers). We can also offer stock options, which is nice. Everyone on our team has stock options, so in a way we are all entrepreneurs — all on the same team trying to accomplish the same things — which is to continue to grow the business. In 2017, we have an extremely ambitious product roadmap with a huge amount of work to do to fully expand internationally, as well as integrate with major platforms such as SAP and Governments directly. We really need to get more butts in seats in our office on the tech side and keep expanding to hit world domination!!”

Peter Aceto

“Change remains the only constant in business and especially in the fintech space, the greatest opportunity. So it is a challenge we welcome to help transform and simplify the banking industry, with smart innovation and a strong corporate culture.”

Michele Romanow

“The rate of change has drastically increased. The average lifespan of a company on the S&P is half of what it used to be 50 years ago. Disruption is happening faster, so businesses need to adapt to the new economy.”

Ron Tite

“That’s easy. It’s focus. This is such an incredible time in business, with so many new and unique opportunities. Every day, new technology, new developments, new relationships, and new consumer behaviours are re-writing the rules that we’ve followed for years. Increasingly, the emerging winners are those who contradict the establishment. You want a playbook? They don’t exist. In a sea of endless possibilities and “what ifs”, my challenge will be identifying and focusing on the ones that will have significant value for us and our clients. Our plan? Noise cancelling headphones.”