The road back to prosperity can be a long trip filled with new challenges along the way. To ensure you are well placed throughout this journey, you will need to plan, prioritise and be prepared to adapt to whatever the future holds.

For many businesses, the shift to COVID-19 Level 2 was their first opportunity to start operating “normally” again. As different businesses are reopening at varying times and different speeds, these external forces will truly test all the planning done during lockdown and will impact your ability to build momentum back again in your organisation. The success for your plan is how well you manage and prioritise your efforts.

These priorities will stem from deciding:

• Which clients you should focus on first. Keeping your major and good paying clients happy will be vital as this will help generate timely cash flow to enable your business to continue to survive.
• The product/ service mix we want to focus on now vs in a month’s time. Pushing higher margin products/ services to the right clients will provide greater short-term gains to our business than lower margin products/ services. This may include reviewing your current pricing strategy and adapting it to suit any opportunities which present themselves. The aim is to price smartly and preserve your gross margin and grow your gross profit during this period.
• How we optimise the marketing mix. Digital channels can be a great ally if used appropriately to reach your target market. Winning the battle of the brand is going to be essential.
•  How we make the most out of our staff during these tough and uncertain times. Staff tends to be one of an organisation’s major expenses. Staff should be kept motivated and happy to ensure their efforts are positively contributing to the organisation’s success.
• How robust and dependable is your supply chain. Most businesses rely on their suppliers providing the right product/ service at the right time to enable them to do what they do best - service their own clients. There may be a need to revisit supplier relationships and diversify your reliance on certain suppliers if there is cause for concern.

To put the above priorities into practice, you will need a clear and considered plan in place before executing it. This plan will need to be tailored to your current operating environment and take into account your organisation’s objectives and capabilities. Remember, a good plan executed perfectly is better than a perfect plan executed poorly. With this in mind, a good plan would tend to have the following traits:

• Simple and straightforward
• Clear about your measures of success and what you are trying to achieve
• Measurable to enable a focussed and motivated approachFocussed on hitting the high return targets that will give you a high return for the investment of your time, effort, and resources
• Transparent and holds people accountable for their actions
• Clear on the result, know the reasons for the result, and be clear and specific on how you will respond and what action you will take next

Once you have drafted your plan, do not be afraid to test it, conduct ‘what if’ analysis, and seek advice from your trusted advisor. Your trusted advisor will be a good sounding board as there are many interrelated issues to consider. These steps will help you create a robust plan which you can implement with greater certainty and confidence. A word of warning - more businesses fail coming out of recessionary times than going into them. Be ever vigilant over the next 3-6 months as the fight is just beginning.

Written by Mike Atkinson, Director, and Kelvin Sam, Associate.