IS IT NOW A TIME FOR REFLECTION, PLANNING OR BOTH?

It has certainly been and will continue to be an interesting and very challenging year across the business world. Never before have businesses had to face and try to overcome the effects of an event like this global Covid19 Pandemic finds us in.  Very like how this sweeping contagious virus is effecting every human being, the effects on the business world are unparalleled in history, therefore most business will have been unprepared for this and will struggle to understand what the best steps and actions are to come through this with minimum negative impact.  Some businesses will of course benefit from these times and these will generally be engaged in providing products and services demanded due to the situation…good luck to them and no doubt they have their own set of challenges to overcome with more to follow when things get back to normal.

Many businesses have and unfortunately more will go out of business during these unprecedented times, some will fail through cash flow pressure, some will fail through a lack of leadership, some will ignore customer’s needs, some will not adapt to the new environment we find ourselves in, some will have over extended prior to this and some will even fail simply because of their location. No matter who you are or who you work for, 2020 has so far been an incredibly ever-changing rollercoaster of a year which has been impossible to predict. Businesses have and will make mistakes and with an ever-changing playing field, this is to be expected, you can’t always be right and you can’t predict the future but you can do all that you can to make sure you limit any potential exposure while setting your company up as best you can to move forward. 

For many, ‘normal’ business is on hold, staff are furloughed if lucky or they may have had to make redundancies, asked staff to use their holidays or even asked them to take unpaid leave. Other businesses may have cut staff hours or be rotating staff to give them some type of income whilst protecting the business financially as best as possible. Wherever you are it is vitally important to know exactly what situation you are in from a financial point of view, cashflow problems sink businesses quickly and this consideration must be at the forefront of the majority all decisions to be made.  Knowing exactly where you are and what costs you have to come plus what costs you have to meet will allow the hard decisions to be made easier. When it comes to business the old analogy “there’s no friends in business” unfortunately must come true in some situations and harsh and ruthless decisions need and must be made. It is never consciously easy to let staff go or even close down a business but during times like we are facing now sometimes these decisions must be made ruthlessly and swiftly for the business to survive. Hopefully with what many governments are doing across the globe to help during this crisis jobs losses & closures will be kept to a minimum.

Let us be honest though, the best businesses, the strongest leaders and of course the best business development managers love a challenging market because this is where the most ground is made up. Generally during tough market conditions such as the financial crisis in 2007/2008 we see a ‘purging’ in many industries where the good businesses with a hunter attitude come to the fore and the pretenders give up and descended into mediocrity at best. Great strides can be made during these times and to do so it is critical to have a well thought through robust plan with a degree of built in flexibility in place. It is the only way a business will survive and position itself for sustainable growth.

So, as we now see across the globe a few early glimmers of hope showing some releases from the grips of this pandemic, what will the future hold and what should business owners and leaders be doing to prepare themselves. This I believe is the perfect time for inner reflection, analysis and for putting together robust and flexible plans in place for what the future will bring for your business. There are tough decisions to be made, that is for sure and the decisions made now and, on the path out of where we find ourselves will shape companies and individuals’ futures for years to come. Make no mistake the world of business as we know has changed and will continue to change as it evolves to the future ‘norm’. So, how do we make sure we set our businesses and ourselves the best path to follow going forward.

At the beginning of 2020, most businesses would have had a plan in place, a plan which would have covered the resource, investment, growth or retraction the business will need going forward. Many may have torn this up already but in essence that plan very likely would have changed anyway whatever year we were in so it’s worth looking at and still using this as your starting point, a roadmap as such for the future. Businesses whatever your size or industry should be continually analysing where they were, taking stock of where they are now and continually and flexibly planning for the future. These three main and simple areas can take many different forms dependent on business size and industry but fundamentally they are the same for all whatever your business may look like. Many larger companies will use analytics, company data, staff surveys or even pay for consulting firms to come in and show patterns where smaller businesses will use basic human analysis. Whichever it is you use it is hugely important when doing this to firstly know exactly where you are as a business.

Take time to understand where your business was at the start of this pandemic, what direction you were looking to take it, what challenges you were facing and how you planned to move forward. Taking time to look over your previous years journeys and what brought you to this stage you may find many parts of your previous planning are still active and still the best building blocks for your business during this time, analysing why you made this plan in the first place will still show you what areas you were doing well in, what challenges you faced and overcame, what could you or the business have done better, what areas could you have branched out into or which areas you should have reigned in. Some business leaders, companies and people will do this type of analysis daily, weekly, monthly and yearly as a standard practice and some may even never do it. Doing this along with the market data you have now will put you in a better position to plan and adapt for the future.

I can understand that planning for the future is something which may have been overlooked lately for many businesses due to the importance of many having to prioritize sustaining where they are now as best they can, and minimize a likely or impending downward spiral. Nevertheless, it is hugely important as we move out of this uncertain time to look to the future and put a plan in place going forward. Putting in place a revised forecast monthly looking forward for a 12-month period is always something businesses should be doing, the major benefit to this will always be that you can see the changing market coming and react to it quicker. Any business that does not produce updated /revised forecasts (plans) regularly, has an equal chance of missing the opportunity to grow and benefit from a changing market as it has in being too slow to react to negativity in their markets and ultimately failing. What is important is to always have an honest reflection on where you have been, where you are currently and where you want to be going forward. This type of thinking and analysis will bring to the surface potential areas for improvement, ideas for better practices and ideas for the future. For some businesses it may even mean taking the company in a completely different direction but this has and will on occasions bear the ripest fruit.

Once you know where you were as a business and what improvements could and can be made, it is then easier to look at where you are now and what the challenges will or may be in the future. Keeping in touch and keeping staff up to date is highly important during a time like this, individuals/families are worried about their jobs, their financial future and good ones are really worried about all the hard work they have put in over the years potentially going to waste. This can be a good time to take stock of your staff numbers, strengths and weaknesses and look to put a plan in place to address any shortfalls or training requirements needed for the future. Staff need and want to know where they stand, and good businesses are open and honest with their staff. Keeping in contact can also be hugely important to help team morale during this time and nowadays utilizing video conference software can make this an easy task and a very important one. Having your staff engaged and well informed throughout this difficult time can bread more loyalty, time and confidence in management. Not to mention that good ideas and observations potentially come from all areas of your business so the more conversations you have the more information you will have to make these decisions.

Keeping in touch with your clients can be as important as keeping in touch with your staff, touching base and having general discussions with your clients can be a great way of finding out new market data whilst cementing and growing your client engagement. Account management has always been a huge factor in any successful business, many companies say they do but only the best ones take care of their customers the way they would like to be taken care of themselves. Reaching out and having the hard discussions is what strong businesspeople do all the time. You may not be able to help your clients currently or them you, but they will remember you were both in it together when the future deals come. This also greatly improves your chances of not missing out on any good business available now or in the future with each client. Waiting to catch up with them after this has gone back to whatever the norm may be will be too late that is for sure. Knowing you care about the relationship in the bad times improves your chances of beating the competition in the good times.

If we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel and we have a good strong flexible plan in place and a keen workforce looking to make great strides forward then timing is going to be another key element for many businesses. When to make the leap forward or when to cautiously tread water is never going to be an easy choice in this current market but knowing your business strength and being prepared will shorten the odds greatly for success. In most industry’s good salespeople will already have sown the seeds for securing that repeat or new business and they will be key to moving forward and gaining that extra income and market share you have always strived for.

The future is never clear, market swings are always unpredictable, key staff and key clients come and go, businesses pivot frequently as they grow and retract so the unpredictable market we find ourselves in now is different and harder, but it’s also similar to what businesses face every day, every year and every decade. A pandemic like this one we are facing unfortunately can beat the best of people and businesses but if we plan well, work hard and do all we can then at least you will have no regrets. In the end this is just another difficult test we are facing which with the right attitude, the right help and the right work ethic is there to be beaten and overcome. Those of us who made great headway during the last business crisis will be honing our skills and knowledge whilst working hard to make sure the future is bright. Will you move into the new world with a new sense of accomplishment? or will you hope someone else does it for you and ultimately perish?

Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoyed it, The PDM Corporation are specialists in listening, conferring and advising businesses, business leaders and individuals in coming to the right choice for them. Sometimes it’s good to just talk and bounce ideas of others to reinforce or take advice on your own way forward. To find out more or to book an hour’s consultation then contact [email protected]

Peter Mills

The PDM Corporation

https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/40734929

Simply Put, We Do It Better