Prescient Business Consulting, in conjunction with the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, presented a webinar entitled “4 Steps to accelerating Recovery and Growth”.
As the webinar was presented during the lockdown, its messages were applicable to all businesses, whether affected by COVID or not. As Prescient Director, David Thomson said “A crisis situation, such as COVID, tends not to create new problems, it simply causes those ‘normal business problems’ to happen to previously healthy businesses, and it can put huge stress on pre-existing fault lines.”
Prescient described some of the early symptoms businesses should look out for which, if left untreated, could turn into life-threatening situations. For example, an ineffective strategy will lead to stagnating, then declining, sales. Cost-cutting can support profit for a while, but a decline in profit will follow. Declining profit will very quickly put a strain on cash, and then the business reaches a crisis point.
Prescient has seen many examples of this chain reaction and has developed a strong methodology for helping businesses avoid the crisis outcome.
As David Thomson says, “Prescient’s approach always comes back to the combination of Strategy, People and Processes, and we simply apply a form of that approach here.
“The Strategy part may seem obvious, but many businesses fail to ask themselves searching enough questions about where they are going and the attractiveness of the market they are in. They perhaps focus on the technical excellence of their offering without realizing that their customers may not value it in the same way, or that the market will become too competitive in the long term.
“The People and Process aspects actually come back to the simple ideas of Focus and Communication. Decide, after proper analysis, what are the 3-5 important issues and focus on them – and focus means a daily concentration, regular measurement and reporting, and a dogged determination to fix the issue, never taking “no” for an answer.
“Communication, however, is the aspect that a lot of businesses, particularly when they are in difficulties, fail to do effectively. If you really want to change your business, whether to get out of difficulties or simply to accelerate growth, then formulate your ‘story’. This is a simple, clear, narrative of why you are where you are now, and where you are going and how you are going to get there. The story should be told to all stakeholders, ie employees, funders, customers, suppliers, etc, changing it for the particular audience, but keeping the core consistency.”
If you feel your business is in need of growth or help in some area, then Prescient would be happy to hear from you.