4 Steps Your Business Should Be Doing Now

Getting a business of any size ready to seize upon the available opportunities of a turn around in the economy is tricky.  With budgets tight and the need to keep cash available, it can be hard for a business to align its resources in the right way.  Freezing everything places the business – your business – at greater risk of not being able to take advantages of opportunities when conditions change.

In a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review, they looked at what it takes for businesses to get ready for the rebound.  The authors discovered that businesses that invest in areas that determine both long and short term growth (like expansions, R&D, and new product launches) have a greater chance of storming out the gates when the economy rebounds than those that do not.  These businesses stuck with calculated strategies that stayed focused on growth while their industry and competition ran for the hills.  Companies that failed to plan for the rebound never made it out alive from the recessions that they were in.

Here is what your business should be doing right now:

• Review your business. Look at where you are exactly at right now with a top down review that looks at financials, departments, products, and people.  There has to be no sacred cows, everything is up for review.
• Remove waste.  Believe it or not, there are still businesses out there that are leaking cash through small amounts of waste.  A great example is the expense account.  While tightened for the need to preserve cash, it is still the foremost area where waste occurs.  Typically in the food arena – your employees should have really good reasons as to why they are eating out everyday on the company dime.  Is it providing value or just a cost of doing business?  If it is the latter, time to find another means of engaging your clients.  Be vigilant and save for when the good times do come.
• Reward resources. Cash, funding, and other capital should be given as reward for areas of the business that can provide both long and short-term growth.  Since your business will be scaling back budgets in other areas, it can become a cause of concern when spending is increased in other departments.  Your business should put a value on these resources by making your teams compete for growth.  The best ideas that will set the business up for success get rewarded.
• Risk prudently. This does not mean be ultra-conservative where you place your resources for the rebound that is going to come.  It means once you have reviewed your business, removed waste, and rewarded resources you keep tabs on the progress of those funds.  It also means that you have to be willing to invest in risk to receive the growth you want to have.

A great example of a company that is implementing the four R’s above is Starbucks (SBUX).  In a recent shareholders meeting Starbucks discussed how they reviewed their business, restructured to remove waste, and are rewarding their resources in area of prudent risk in the form of new products and buying back stock.  The success of their plan has allowed the company to issue a dividend for the first time.

The lessons are pretty clear.  For any business – especially your business – to survive you have to be willing to focus on growth, even in a recession.  You have to be willing to risk going against the conventional wisdom to be ready to exploit the opportunities that will come when the rebound happens.

If you are not prepared, you better get cracking!

What is your business doing to get ready for the rebound?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.