Be prepared to make difficult business decisions. Every business owner must do that. But there are things to consider for both the owner and the employee. 
It’s important that we all do our part to ensure the safe lives of others. As a business owner, one of the toughest things to do is to make decisions that impact lives. Ask any business owner and they will have a story of the first time the decision they made impacted employees negatively. You may be surprised but it literally broke their heart. Especially when their business and employee are like family. This is the challenge of a small and mid-range business.
As hard as this is, as business owners and leaders you need to go back to basics. Using facts, calculating your actions and plan a recovery now. Once this passes there will be pent up demand. People will want to get out and be with other people, jobs postponed that needed to be done will start up again, and people will appreciate what everyone did and what needed to be done.
This does not mean we don’t have a rocky road ahead. We just need to ensure that we consider the following now with plans to move on once it is time to do so. Our history shows everything passes and there is a burst of grown afterwards.
For the right now you should be considering the following actions for your business.
- Review Strategic/business plans: This is an essential action to take. You need to look at your strategic plan and make adjustments. If you don’t have a strategic plan, you might want to create one. You will need to address the business fundamentals — sales and marketing, finance and administration, operations, technology and human resources.
- Cutback operating expenses: You need to get your numbers in line, both fixed and variable expenses. Connect with your supply chain and have those discussions now. Use real numbers from your financial reports to guide this process.
- Delay capital expenditures: I hate to say it but now might not be the time to invest in your capital projects. You need to see how everything settles.
- Reduce staff: I have never liked recommending to a company to reduce staff. But unfortunately, it is a reality of business. You will need to look at this carefully as it is a balance between keeping your intellectual capital (knowledge, experience), current work and future work requirements, and people fit and performance.
- Consolidate operations: If you can, find ways to restructure now. Don’t wait. Business consolidation is used to improve operational efficiency by reducing redundant personnel and processes. Often small to mid ranges business has a lot of structural and operational inefficiencies. Look at your business and remove the bottle-necks, bring departments together, and re-look at your organizational chart.
- Develop a Contingency Plan: If you don’t have one, you should. A contingency plan is a plan devised for an outcome other than in the usual plan. It is often used for risk management for an exceptional risk that, though unlikely, would have catastrophic consequences. Business owners miss the opportunity to develop these plans early on. Understandably as effort is placed on business growth and development. But every business should have a contingency plan.
- Plan for the future now: There is no point in doing all this work unless you are not only going to tighten-up for the short-haul. You need to have a bigger picture in mind. Even with the unknown, you need to have a plan. In this case, I like to use a little risk management planning, business analysis and strategic planning approaches to set the stage for the future.
This is an unfortunate world event. One that we should not be taken lightly. History has taught us, events like these are incredible opportunities for the future of your business, peoples lives and the world as a whole. As a business owner, you have a responsibility to be candid about your business, where it is, what needs to be done, why, and the actions you need to take now to make sure you have a tomorrow.
I wish you and your business all the best on your journey ahead.
