Member Spotlight

Market Sector – Business Coaching
Lives – Kettering, Northamptonshire
Web: www.cbmgroup.co.uk

Planning in a Recession

It's now almost official. The government is accepting what most of us have known for some months. We are entering into a recession. But what does that mean to your average SME and is there anything that should be done or do we all just hang on and see where it takes us.

Reactive planning has become the norm over the last ten years or so and steady but continued growth has allowed SMEs to get away with it. Business decisions could be made retrospectively and if our actions overcooked the position, time and steady growth would correct it for us.

Recession, however shallow, is a different matter. There is no natural growth and business will have to be taken from, or defended against, competitors. This requires clearly thought out and developed competitive strategies designed to exploit your competitors weaknesses and your strengths. Additionally, in a recession, there is no automatic warning bell to signal that your cost structure is wrong. If sales have outstripped capacity people will tell you they can't cope. If there is insufficient work, people are slow to comment.

Waiting till you run out of cash is often too late and most SMEs don't know their true profitability untill several months after their year end. As we enter recession therefore, now is the time for that business plan review so as to:

• Identify and develop new strategies to maximise sales in the current climate.
• Review the whole business and plan for efficiency gains where possible.
• Plan to maximise cash.
• Document projections as a basis for regular review and corrective action.
• Identify ahead of time potential cash flow problems. A business in control is more attractive to the bank manager than one that unknowingly exceeds its limits.

It all appears to be perfectly logical but few SMEs will actually undertake a planning review. Those that do will have the advantage. Those that don't will point to lack of time, after all they have a business to run, and take the risk of having much more time than they might imagine.

Armed with an MBA (with award) from Henley The Management College, one of the top business schools in the world, Charles Brooks spent many years buying and running SMEs. Despite his qualifications and experience gained, there was never enough time to do everything and getting the right sort of help was almost impossible. He formed Comprehensive Business Management Ltd (CBM) as a consequence and they are a recognised practice of Institute of Business Consulting.

Knowing the benefits of planning and review but also knowing the time and effort the process requires, Comprehensive Business Management offers a complete planning service including help with market research and strategy development. Every plan produced is bespoke and tailored to the needs of the company. Financial projections and graphical representation of the key numbers along with sensitivity and ratio analysis make the plan easy to present to outsiders. This is particularly important if it turns out that you need to raise additional funds.

With the business plan produced and approved CBM can help with finding sources of additional funding.

To maximise the benefit of having a business plan CBM have an ongoing review service which focuses on the key performance indicators and variances to plan. If you know how you're doing your business decisions and actions will be timely and will address the main issues. This service is again tailored to the needs of the business and is, therefore, usually affordable. Running your own business is a lonely life and having an experienced person who understands and keeps up with your business can be an invaluable asset as a sounding board.

If you work with Comprehensive Business Management there is no obligation to use all of their services but they strive to offer a complete service from identifying realistic goals and objectives through to securing funding and ongoing business support.

For more information contact Comprehensive business Management Ltd on 01604 420 420 or e mail info@cbmgroup.co.uk or visit our website www.cbmgroup.co.uk