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How Your Business Can Beat The Coronavirus!

How Your Business Can Beat The Coronavirus!

Are you worried about your business’s resilience during the Coronavirus crisis?

Everybody’s freaking out right now and buying toilet paper, pasta and canned foods!

THE SITUATION IS NOW THIS:

Many businesses in Australia have been dealing with a challenging trading environment for some time and with draught, fires, floods and now a virus which is causing mass panic, the profit and cashflow pressures for some businesses is about to heighten to unprecedented levels. Many businesses can expect:

❌ New customer enquiries to slow, reduced sales and a reduction in customers
❌ Supply chain challenges and failures and increasing costs for supplies
❌ Anxious employees and absenteeism from illness or quarantines
❌ Difficulties with cashflow needed to keep the business operating
❌ Hard decisions on all kinds of issues effecting your business ability to operate

This is pretty scary stuff!! The governments stimulus package is focused on keeping business in business and people in jobs, but can you rely on the government to bail you out? Will it be enough to ensure your business survives? For many businesses it won’t be!

OUR TIPS ON WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING NOW:
  • Develop a business continuation plan. Keep in mind the Government is suggesting current trading conditions which may worsen could last 6-months or more due to the health policies for Coronavirus. We highly recommend all business develop a business continuation plan by bringing together your key stakeholders and advisors and work on the issues together in your business. You don’t need to do this alone!  Don’t wait for someone else to help. If you are beginning to see your sales/revenue reducing or can just tell customers are not turning up, don’t wait for the government to bail you out, starting planning and making changes now.
  • Understand government support programs. Ensure you are accross the federal and state goverment grants available to businesses effected by Coronavirus health policies and secure grants you are eligible for.  To determine your eligibility these articles will help:
  • Understand your revenue drivers. Identify your revenue drivers and actively take action to retain customers and acquire new customers. If you are a brick and motor retail store or hospitality business and are not selling online (online stores or delivery services) consider opening this sales channel as more people will likely buy online to avoid going into the public places. If you have a small number of clients, start talking to them about the affects they are experiencing and understand their problems, perhaps you can find a unique solution for them to keep everyone trading.
  • Keep the supplies coming. Predict supply chain challenges and secure cost-effective supplies and services for your business. Contact your key suppliers and ensure you will have ongoing access to all the supplies you need to continue to operate and make forward orders now. While your speaking to them ask them if they can improve their prices and payment terms, you never know what response you might get.
  • Put pressure on the landlord. This is a good time to be talking to your landlord and pressing them for rent relief. It’s in everyone’s interest for you to continue to operate so get your landlord investigating if they can reduce your rent or if you need to close hold on rent for a period.
  • Put pressure on your bank/lenders. Contact your bank manager or lender and ask what steps they are taking to support your business over the next 6-months. Investigate cashflow solutions such as overdrafts and credit cards and ask for discounted interest rates.
  • Roster like a master. Ensure you fully understand the peaks and troughs in your trade and roster accordingly to reduce overstaffing or understaffing for which both will affect your profitability.
  • Keep people working. Have a proven system to manage employee absenteeism and improve your relationship with employees during these troubling times by offering flexible working conditions, working from home if possible, reduced hours as opposed to terminations if you can, foster more loyalty from employees in this time of crisis because you will need them when this passes. If you need to stand people down do so professionally and with dignity and keep them informed on when they may be able to return to work.
  • Get the money in sooner. Act noww to improve your cashflow! Improve your cash position by reducing customer terms, implement online payment solutions and step up debt collection activity to get paid faster.
  • Hold off on paying the ATO.   If you can’t afford to pay the ATO, the ATO has hardship provisions that your Tax Accountant can assist you to access or call the ATO to discuss payment arrangements BUT, make sure you keep filing your returns.
  • Invest in new systems. Determine what systems and process improvements will help your business run more efficiently and provide you more insights for better decision making.
  • Become a project manager. Have a system to help you identify action steps to assist you through these challenges and help you keep focused and on track.
HOW WE CAN HELP:
Develop a Business Continuation Plan

To help as many small businesses as possible I am providing our “Business Continuation Framework” for FREE which is a great tool that can be used to develop a Business Continuation Plan   We use this framework to help us work with clients to identify improvements to increase profit and improve cashflow and to structure action steps weekly, monthly and over 90 days to keep all stakeholders on task. We hope it helps!!   You can download the framework here on this link: https://onventure.com.au/business-continuation-framework/

Use our 10 tips to Increase Profit & Improve Cashflow guide

We are currently developing a Coronavirus version of this guide but the current version will still help business develop a better understanding of the type of strategic thinking they need to apply to their business to ensure it is more resilient in this time of economic crisis.  You can download the guide along with other guides here: https://onventure.com.au/ebooks/

Engage OnVenture to deliver our 90 Day Business Optimisation Program

We use the Business Success Framework and other tools to kick off a half day planning session to identify the current challenges the business is facing and develop action steps on a 90 day, monthly and weekly basis.  Thereafter weekly meetings with management helps to ensure all stakeholders are staying on task while allowing business to remain agile and address any new issues which present each week.   This can be a cost effective way to secure a business coach over the next 90 days.

Engage OnVenture as a Virtual CFO

If you aren’t keen to commit to the 90 Day Business Optimisation Program however want elements of the program delivered or other forecasting, reporting, strategic planning and management consulting services delivered beyond your current service package consider engaging OnVenture to operate as your Virtual CFO on an hourly, pay as you go basis or if specific responsibilities are identified a fixed fee arrangement.   Some of the tasks we can assist with are:

  • Identify any systems or process improvements that may reduce administration time and costs and provide more insights
  • Helping you identify your revenue drivers and implement monitoring systems
  • Predict supply chain challenges and negotiate access to supplies and prices with suppliers, landlords and lenders.
  • Identify cashflow policy changes to improve cash inflows while reducing or delaying cash outputs
  • Help you effectively park the business if you need to close the business either due to health or economic reasons
  • Understand and access current and future government incentives, grants and hardship provisions
  • Manage your people during the crisis including setting up employees to work from home when appropriate, handling reduced hours, leave, shut downs/stand downs and terminations which will be necessary for some businesses.

OnVenture can’t stop the economic affects you and your business may experience due to the virus, our communities and governments response however we can help you to navigate through these complex times and help your business to be more resilient.

Whats next from us?

Book in a FREE 30-minute chat with me to discuss your business challenges and how we might be able to help.   Book in here: https://calendly.com/onventure/discovery30min

Hope you find some toilet paper, good luck out there!

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