Seven Tips: On Weathering The Storm

SCENARIO PLAN

Define your best, worst and most likely scenarios.  Document actions. In your worst case, what would it take to be cash flow positive?

COMMUNICATIONS

There are few things scarier than silence during troubling times.  Put together and communicate your business continuity plan for both inside and outside your organisations.

PEOPLE

Bring in HR specialists to help message to employees or put action plans in place should rightsizing be required. Take care of your key employees. It may soon be an advantaged time to find great talent.

COST REDUCTIONS

Review your balance sheet and income statement. Do zero based budgeting.  Remove all expenses that are not contributing to revenue generation.

TECHNOLOGY

If your workers can go virtual, it doesn’t hurt to socially distance. If you aren’t using cloud collaboration tools like Zoom or Microsoft 365, put these in place.  They’re relatively inexpensive and effective.

GO VARIABLE

Every company right now is thinking about their hiring cycles.  It’s hard to hire if you can’t forecast. At the same time, the world needs to keep on rotating.  Think about going more variable with interim resources.

OPS IMPROVEMENT

If you don’t have a lot of slack in your rope from a financial performance perspective, get ahead of it.  After the first covenant default, you usually have time. After the second covenant default, the bank often brings in their own expensive and biased turnaround groups.  Don’t wait to let this happen.