The Wisdom of Thinking and Deciding for the Long-Term

Business Tip: Wise Long-Term Decisions

A Long Lasting Business Needs to be Directed by Wise
Long-Term Decisions

The short-term versus the long-term

When we speak of the short-term, we usually mean what would
benefit the business in a short span of time. It could mean
getting a huge amount of profit for a short-period of time or
it could mean a big expansion within just a little period of
time. On the other hand, when we speak of the long-term, we
usually mean what would affect or benefit a business if it
were to survive the start-up years, sail through the stability
years and move forward to the future. Sometimes, when a
business owner or a corporation where to make decisions that
would affect their business, they have to think first how the
decision will affect the business in the short-term and also
how the decision will affect the business in the long-term.
Often, businesses cannot accommodate benefits that would
equally be good in the short-term and in the long-term at the
same time. What likely happens in reality is that we need to
sacrifice the short-term benefit in favor of the long-term, or
we need to sacrifice the long-term benefit in favor of the
short-term. Whatever be the decision of management or the
corporate owners, the decision will eventually have effects
that will carry on over to the long-term. The ideal decision
is one that provides benefits for both the short-term and the
long-term.

Decision-making depends on how long you want to run
your business

If you want to make huge profits in a short span of time
without really intending to make your business last for a long
time, then short-term decisions which favor such would be what
the business needs. If however, you want your business to last
for a long time and thereby provide for you a source of income
way up to your retirement years, then decisions that favor the
long-term is what your business needs. Even if the business
for instance needs to sacrifice profits in the short-term but
will eventually gain better and larger profits in the future
for the long-term, then better to wisely take on the decision
that will benefit the long-term. Wise long-term decisions are
what will make your business grow steadily and be founded on
solidly-based and highly-principled decisions that not only
benefit you, your partners, or co-owners and your employees, but
most of all, the society and industry in which your business
operates. Money, income and revenue that is gained through
long-term decisions are often not easily lost and spent
unwisely. Rather, it is money, income and revenue that is
gained through short-term decisions that look only at the
present and the ripeness of a single opportunity that is easily
lost and spent unwisely.

The wisdom of deciding more for the long-term

Although we may at times need to really make a short-term
decision for our business, when we focus more on the long-term
decision and what it can do and benefit our business for the
long-run, this is what will really make the business an asset
not only for the immediate people involved in the business,
but also for the society and industry in which it operates in.
If our business minds are trained to think in terms of the
long-run, the long-term, what will benefit its immediate
business environment, and how it should be handled by
succeeding generations, then for sure, our business minds will
be geared to obtain a certain business wisdom that sees the
bigger picture, the larger context, and the long-stretch of
time that it will have to live through if it is to survive the
many business doldrums, depressions, economic downturns, and
financial crises. What is important therefore is not to be
too focused in getting a profit as soon as we can or "all the
time". We can sacrifice the profit in the near term for a
better one and for larger incomes to come in the future - if
we really are serious about building a solid and long lasting
business. What we can focus on in the short-term in building
our business is giving as much service excellence as we can
for our clients and customers and developing greater
credibility and trust within the social milieu of our business.
This will create the goodwill necessary to expand the business
and create that intangible assets that cannot be bought by any
huge amount of money. These intangible assets, like quality
customer relations management and many repeat business, are
the assets that would prove to be the most important and
precious nontangible asset for many, many generations.