A question a lot of people and an increasing number of businesses are asking and searching for an answer to is how to get through the current and unprecedented challenges and, importantly, what does the future hold? Having worked with some of the world’s largest, public listed and private engineering, manufacturing and infrastructure businesses to help them develop, launch and deliver business recovery, transformation and growth we wanted to share some basic areas worthy of focus to really help ensure you are in the best possible shape to weather and recover from the current global challenges. In our experience, keeping things simple and focusing on the basics is important to ensure truly impactful change so let’s stick with the fundamentals. Here are three “F” words worthy of some additional focus and attention to help you navigate through Coronavirus: Finance “Balancing your money is the key to having enough” (Warren) The phrase “cash is king” was coined amid global recession. It is certainly true and somewhat obvious that businesses who look after cash and cash flow have a level of resilience and the best chance of survival. With focus on top line growth, businesses often push all of their efforts into business development, work winning and collecting cash from customers. What is often lacking is sufficient, prudent focus on cash outflow in terms of operating costs. Business that struggle with bottom line returns have often lost or have insufficient focus on where their hard-earned revenues are truly being spent. In times of difficulty it is more important than ever to ensure that operating costs are optimised and carefully controlled. “A penny saved is a penny earned” (Franklin – well almost) Functions “Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it” (Drucker) “Functional Excellence” and “Operational Excellence” are terms often found in improvement and transformation literature. At there most basic level, these two well hackneyed terms describe essentially the same approach and impact on the business. It is in essence about ensuring that the value contribution from people, processes and tools in the business are aligned to the customer requirement and value proposition. When times are good and the focus and mindset is on growth, business functions can grow to a point where the alignment can sometimes become indirect and blurred. In times of difficulty and distress, it is important to ensure realignment and directness of value contribution to both current and future customer needs. Future “The future depends on what we do in the present” (Ghandi) There is lots of talk of a “new normal”. It is important to critically evaluate business plans, market, and positioning during times of significant and tumultuous change to ensure the right focus is maintained to steer the best course to growth. This of course needs to both anticipate and respond to current and future customer needs; something that may be in question right now. Whilst the Coronavirus pandemic continues and the effects and impacts are yet to be fully understood, it is important to engage with and discuss the future with key customers where possible and use this and wider market intelligence where possible to adjust plans and strategies to both secure and optimise future business performance. If you would like some help to work through the next steps or simply have a chat, contact us here. “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path” (Buddha) Comments are closed.
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Applying CPR to Your Business- Helping You to Survive & Thrive CategoriesArchives
June 2021
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