Its time to invest...

Whats coming for Saffron....

So today our team made the brave decision to invest in the growth of our business following lengthy strategic discussions within our management team. I’m sure this is a question being asked up and down the country right now, do we spend or do we save? We have made the brave and risky decision to invest and plan to revise and improve our corporate buffet ecommerce websites, our marketing, booking process and product offering. I think it’s wise to assume that economic crisis, as hard and devastating as it can be, can create opportunities for innovative business and inaction does not guarantee protection or safety in uncertain times.

It is too risky to do nothing other than hope things will get better and the uncertainly on how long this will last or what life will look like afterwards is unclear, so regardless we plan to position ourselves for growth when the economy recovers. Our number one priority is to make the right strategic calls now to help us navigate what will inevitably be a turbulent time period and potentially a recession to come out the other side, poised and prepared for growth.

We plan to do this by progressing, at pace, plans we had already discussed prior to this time period will now go forward but with changes from the learning of what has happened in the last 6 weeks. The old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket comes to mind as we remodel what our new website might look like and what we might sell, how and to whom it is selling to for this particular sector of our business. I am following my own advice and not ploughing into a single sector, we plan to make a website and product range that targets the market as it is now and what we see as our target market in the future. This is doubly important during an unpredictable time as a recession if that is what is coming our way.

Diversifying across industries will protect us from potentially greater losses if a particular product or industry loses value. Our first task is to improve our operational efficiency to maximise the return from the investment now to pay off in the future. We plan to invest in our team to ensure our employees are well trained and operating as effectively and efficiently as possible to make our business more lean and efficient. We plan to use technology to streamline our booking process and move our corporate buffet business primarily online through an eCommerce platform that will out-perform anything we have in the business currently and increase capacity for the expansion of our products and service and therefore grow our business. This will also enable us to explore new markets and increase our market share at a time when its more important than ever to diversify our business.

We are very aware of our customers changing requirements and it is crucial to ensure that our products are inline with requirements. Without the investment in our new website, plus changes and development in our marketing, we just wont be able to achieve this so by making a calculated and decisive decision now, we hope this will pay dividends longer term. What we lack in resource and cash being a small business against larger competitors, we can make up for in the speed and agility in the execution of our plans and with partner companies working with us quickly, we can be flexible and adaptive which is our biggest defence against the implications of a recession.

I have been asked the question, it if it is the right thing to do to spend our capital at this time, as in where and how to invest, this comes down to picking your challenges strategically and reviewing the changing needs of our clients. What will give us the competitive advantage, what changes are required to operate in this new world order and how do we know if it will work. We don’t know is the answer, but going back to my earlier point to do nothing is a more risky decision. I have sort advice here, analysed the options and viewed the various scenarios with a group of trusted advisers who are viewing the landscape with a clear perspective neither with pessimism or being overly optimistic and by looking at it this way, we can co-create a strategy that is thought through and robust.

This time in our business is certainly tough and one commodity we do have right now is time and it is the time to take creative risks and plan to take our companies long term performance to a higher level.

#newworldorder #newnormal #makinginvestmentnow #strategicdecision