They insert an extra P in there to describe how said poor performance can be without planning (use your imagination to fill in the blank), and the saying has found favour in other sectors the world over. Nowhere is it more applicable than in a business turnaround strategy.
If your business is struggling in these straitened times you’ve got two options:
- Carry On Regardless. Just keep on with business as usual and hope things get better. We all know how that one ends.
- Man Up. Accept that things aren’t going so well and make some changes to improve the situation and turn your company around.
Obviously you need to do the latter.
Things won’t get better through inaction. You need to make the changes needed to adapt to the new business landscape. Adaptation is the key to survival and business turnaround. However don’t plough on and make changes without serious consideration. The ultimate key to success for any business turnaround strategy is the planning. If you make changes without thinking about their ramifications then you might find yourself up against the wall quicker than if you’d done nothing at all.
Of course before you make any plans it would probably help to consult with some experts in the field, and you’ll find that a company that specialises in business turnaround strategy can be a real help. Sometimes as an owner of a business you can be too close to things to make the measured turnaround decisions that need to be made. Some impartial advice from outside can be a real help.
As always the first step has to be an honest appraisal of your current situation. Have you got cash flow problems? If so why? Is it poor budgeting? Not chasing in overdue invoices? Maybe you’re haemorrhaging cash elsewhere in the business and need to make changes to your infrastructure.
Once you’ve assessed the situation this will then allow you to draw up plans to make turnaround changes that will be good for your business in the mid to long term, instead of knee jerk reactions that might work for the short term but only compound problems later when it comes to trying to turn your business around.
A business loan from the bank might seem a natural response to cash flow problems. But with banks being increasingly strict on lending this may not even get out of the starting blocks. If you do secure a loan, how is it going to affect things further down the line? If that extra money clears a few bills but you then can’t service the loan you might start to consider trying to reduce your wage bill by going through a round of redundancies, leaving you with less staff, who are more stressed out and more likely to jump from what they view as a sinking ship.
You can see how a seemingly common sense reaction could have negative effects on turnaround without proper forethought and planning.
If your company is in distress and needs a sound business turnaround strategy to ensure its survival, then talk to a company who can help. Don’t delay. Take action now to avoid failure in the future.
