The final week of the year is often a slow one when it comes to business. Unless you're in retail, your business is probably running on reduced hours or fewer days, so the question arises: How can you maintain productivity to an efficient level? After all, there's no point in even opening the office if your workers are just going to sit around and watch the clock tick away. You have to make some critical decisions: Will you shorten the work week even further? Will you introduce work incentives? Or will you find other strategies to boost returns and drive up productivity?

For example, serial entrepreneur Chris Brogan writes on his eponymous blog that these slow final weeks of the year can actually shine a light, for once, on your enterprise. You can take advantage of the general slowdown as an opportunity for you to accelerate your operations and stand out among rivals. But how?

One place to start is your website. Advertise any changes you may be making around the holidays - hours, personnel, services, deals. If any of these strategies are to be enhanced, make sure your website visitors know this. Toward that end, plaster these messages throughout the social web as well.

"If you haven't updated your SEO strategy lately, is your site using the best and most current keywords to help you attract more free search engine traffic? Check your website's title, page headers, intro copy, image tags and internal linking structure," suggests startup consultant Scott Fox on his blog.

Remember, it's easy to get caught up in your own website and assume its quality. But you're biased. Sometimes it helps to bring in an outside voice, someone who can review it in an objective manner. They can answer questions about user-friendliness, design, functionality, service, etc.

Also, don't forget the power of email. This relatively ancient web technology is still as powerful as ever, so consider building an email chain and sending out exclusive offers to your prospects. Don't forget to include a holiday message, complete with news and unique content.

"If you haven't sent an email newsletter to your list lately, send a friendly holiday or New Year's greeting," Fox adds. "It will help keep your email list fresh and maybe inspire a few sales, too."