Most businesses - small and large - are busy working to survive at the moment, but how effectively will they respond when the UK and wider European and World economies start to recover? Responding to a recovery can be just as difficult as surviving a recession, strange as that may seem and in particular a sudden increase in cash requirements has caused the failure of many businesses in a recovery phase.
Once recovery is happening it is actually far too late to respond if a business is going to maximise benefit and, indeed, "survive the recovery". The gestation period for a new product or service is much longer than people think, and when the time to obtain raw materials, adapt manufacturing processes, design packaging and marketing campaigns is added the whole can take well over a year. On top of this are business considerations - awakening from a period of low activity will put a sudden demand on all types of resources - cash, equipment and people.
Now therefore is the time to plan ahead and ensure that all that can be done in advance has been done. This activity doesn't require much by way of physical resources, so it's not going to put more strain on a business in financial terms, it is more about "inspiration rather than investment" and applying the right skills, knowledge and approach.
Examine the business and identify its core strengths and weaknesses, search for new opportunities which might emerge, think about how to exploit its resources in skills, equipment, etc to the full and prepare business plans so that the most profitable opportunities are identified and followed and the case for investment and borrowing is well and properly prepared.
It may well be worthwhile discussing plans with investors and bankers so that they know the business has a future and are expecting your approach for funds when the time is right. It is certainly worth doing plenty of groundwork on the technical aspects of new ideas, looking at how current equipment and processes might be modified to produce new products, produce existing products more cheaply and providing greater capacity. The same sort of thinking needs to be applied to people, can people be trained to a higher level of knowledge and performance and empowered by learning new skills on top of their current ones. Investment in people will lead to an empowered, motivated workforce and that is just about the most important resource any business can have.
Many businesses will not have all the skills and experience (and perhaps time) needed to tackle these issues and opportunities, and Acumentia is very well placed to help with this. The members all have extensive business experience as well as their specific technical skills, indeed many have been in business through this kind of deep recession before and know the difficulties associated with responding to an upturn very well. Supplementing a business's skills and capacity by using Acumentia can be extremely cost effective because we consist of a group of highly skilled and experienced individuals, focussed on providing solutions without the high costs and slow responses which characterise larger consultancy businesses.
Acumentia is able to be extremely flexible in its response and to work with businesses to identify the best type of support and who, from our wide range of consultancy skills is best placed to provide it.
A Checklist for Future Success
•· Are the business's strengths, weaknesses and opportunities well understood or would the input of someone with a third party view have value. The market may have changed and opportunities may be missed
•· Are all the businesses products appropriate for the future or do some need to be discarded and new ones created
•· Are the skill sets within the business adequate for the future or do people need further training. Do you need a plan for recruitment with roles and skills identified as output increases, ensuring always that overheads lag output.
•· Are manufacturing resources well maintained and ready to run more intensively - nothing is more frustrating than the breakdown of a key piece of equipment just when it is most needed
•· What new product opportunities are there, can these be developed with minimal resources to a point where most of the questions have been answered
•· Can new products be produced with the same equipment, people etc. or is modification and retraining going to be needed, how much of this be done in advance
•· How will increased market opportunities be "signalled" ?. Keep close to customers and monitor the market , several weeks notice might be needed to be able to meet an increase in demand and several months to have a new product in front of consumers, customers or clients
•· What will be the cash requirements as output expands, a good recovery business plan and well documented demand information from the market will help to make cash available when it is needed.