STEPS TO BE TAKEN AFTER LOCKDOWN FOR BUSINESS

Revving to start up Business after lockdown

AKSHAY D. SHELKE (CEO)

D.R.S. Group of industries

STEPS TO BE TAKEN AFTER LOCKDOWN

What will it take to mitigate this economic crisis, now that our traditional metrics and assumptions have been rendered irrelevant? Simply put, it’s our turn to answer a question that many of us once asked our grandparents: What did you do during the war?

Well, the answer is – during the war, we hidden ourselves in our houses and planned and thereafter we executed our plans on the battlefield.

Thus, the Companies need to think and act across the below mentioned five stages, leading from the crisis of today to the next normal that will emerge after the battle against corona virus has been won.

COMPANIES NEED TO THINK AND ACT ACROSS FOLLOWING FIVE HORIZONS:

1. RESOLVE:

Address the immediate challenges to business i.e. Workforce, Customers & Suppliers

• Prioritize the activities to get the workforce back to work immediately.
• Visit your suppliers, subcontractors, customers etc to understand the ground realities.
• Contact alternate employees, suppliers etc. if required.

2. RESILIENCE (Capacity to recover)

Address near future cash management challenges and broader resiliency issues during lock down:

• Ensure that your plan for improving liquidity and cash flow are executed.
• Focus on cash flows for the short term profitability.]
• Take necessary steps to shorten your cash cycle.
• Don’t withdraw money from the business, reinvest the profits for the growths.
• Execute the plan to resolve the financial crisis.
• Dispose off the uncalled for inventories as soon as possible to bring some cash flows and reduce the inventory carrying costs.
• In short, ensure that all the resources are in place to make a start afresh.

3. RETURN

Focus business that can easily provide returns in the present circumstances and help in returning to scale quickly as COVID-19 situation evolves and knock on effect become clearer:

• Read the market and customer’s reaction after COVID-19 situation, prepare a list of demand of your products in the market.
• Calculate the short term profitability on the products after considering the demands.
• Focus on the products as per the demands and profitability, ignore the product initially if it does not have any short term profitability.The Mantra of successful business is to sell what is needed i.e. diversify your business according to the demand.

4. RE-IMAGINATION

Re-imagine the next normal: what a discontinuous shift looks like and implications how institutions should reinvent

There may be a small or a huge difference between the normal before Covid-19 and normal after Covid-19, Business has changed forever due to the corona virus.

A business which was normal before impact of Corona, may be impossible after Corona, therefore, one should imagine the new normal, and should act accordingly to achieve that.

For Example: Suppose normal sale of a business per day is Rs. 30 thousand before lockdown but after lockdown of 2 to 3 months this sale can’t be imagined in starting due to diversification of Customers, at that time sale of 15 to 20 thousand can be treated as normal for initial period. So finding the new Normal is equally important to reform your business

5. REFORM

Be clear about Regulatory and Competitive environment.

The Law, regulations, economy all might change drastically after Corona, the new laws and regulations are likely be more supportive to the business, which is good for a businessman but the supportive laws may also encourage more people to start their businesses and which will raise the Competitions.

Followings may be the changes in external environment:

• Supportive Business Policies and Regulations.
• Entry of new Competitors.
• Exit of Existing Competitors.

Therefore, the planning and actions should consider the Govt policies and regulations so that goal could be achieved and new surprises could be avoided

Please be clear and prepare yourselves to gear up your business after Lockdown.

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Note: The above is the observation of Authors as on 19^th Day of April, 2020. Observations are given keeping in view the impact of Corona virus till date, the impact can be worse than now in future, in that case some observations may be changed.