In the current extraordinary economic climate, many businesses have failed to thrive or even survive. With a robust business plan in place and a flexible strategy to weather the storm, we have found that businesses on our 8 Step Business Improvement Programme have been able to adapt and look forward to more profitable times ahead.
At CRM, we have always believed in the importance of offering our clients far more than a basic accountancy service. We are very proud to share our expertise and knowledge with clients through BIP, our 8 Step Business Improvement Programme.
By following the 8 Steps, we guide and mentor business owners and managers who want to take control of their future performance and results. The tried and tested 8 Steps are: Plan, Measure, Review, Evaluate, Compare, Value, Analyse and Improve.
Tony Hobbs, CRM Managing Director, has been working with clients on the programme to assess the current situation. He said:
All businesses have been faced with unprecedented circumstances this year, with difficult decisions to be made, and this certainly applied to our BIP clients.
In one particular case, our client suffered a drop in turnover of 90% virtually overnight. The business plan we had set up for the year suddenly looked like a contender for the Booker Prize for fiction. It would have been easy to drop the plan altogether and go into crisis planning mode, but we did not do this.
Together, we looked at the short-term actions that were needed to get through the next month, taking advantage of all the Government-backed resources. Then we went back to the business plan and started to remodel it, looking at various scenarios that might happen in the months ahead. Already having a plan and strategy in place enabled them to model what happened to the business at different levels of turnover and gross profit margin.
Instead of quickly cost-cutting, they were able to break down the decision process into monthly phases, according to customer demand and supply chain availability – making timely, informed decisions based on a solid model driven by the numbers for the business.
With the business climate still a long way from normal, they are applying this methodology each month, adjusting the model to look at possible scenarios over the next three months, and making business decisions on what was considered to be the most likely outcome.
Our advice is not to abandon good principles of business management to a crisis state. You are not going to gain anything in the short term and will do lasting damage in the medium to long term. This has been well-proven in recent months by our clients on our BIP.
In good times and bad, the 8 Step Business Improvement Programme makes running a business clearer and more systemised, setting out transparent goals that the whole company can follow and focusing on the numbers that will actually influence your onward survival and success.
For more information on the CRM 8 Step Business Improvement Programme, check out the website or call the team on 01865 379272.
