Today’s blog is the third of a four-part series outlining business survival tips during Covid-19. It is imperative that businesses always understand their current and future financial position, analyse the detail of actual and forecast results and plan accordingly. Today’s three tips will focus on the importance and effectiveness of planning, sales and technology.

Covid-19 has had a significant impact on the Australian economy and on Australian businesses. We encourage you to read the tips below and use this period as a catalyst for growth and business improvement.

Develop a Plan!

Before you do anything in a business, you must develop a plan! Review your current business operations and construct a budget and forecast for the period ahead. You will need to understand details such as: sales opportunities translating into revenue, wages, rent, tax and other supplier payments. To understand cash flow forecasts, you will also need to know the due dates of these receipts and payments and this will allow you to pinpoint exactly where your business is heading and what plan is required to meet your goals.

When planning during periods of great uncertainty, it is good practice to look at both a worst-case and best-case scenario. For the worst-case scenario, assume that Covid-19 will last longer than predicted and plan accordingly. Turning a blind eye and leaving things until they are too late will not benefit anyone. It is better to be over prepared than under prepared.

Businesses should use forecasts to pre-empt peaks and troughs and plan accordingly. To generate accurate P&L and cash flow forecasts businesses must understand their inflows and outflows, calculate their break-even position, and use SMART technology, to update their financial position on a regular basis. Frequent and accurate forecasting will help businesses navigate their way through these uncertain times.

Keep an Eye on Sales

It is very important to keep an eye on and understand sales during the best of times, let alone during periods of change and uncertainty. Businesses should know where their sales are being generated and double down on their strengths. This is an opportunity to have a close look at your sales pipeline, analyse how sales are being generated and understand your lead times and conversion rates.

Regular meetings with your sales team to review sales opportunities and understand what the market wants from you is an important piece of the financial puzzle – it is a lead time that will eventuate in profit and cash and the sooner you are aware of this the better that you can plan for the inevitable.

It is also good practice to understand the profitability associated with your sales before your Sales team close the deal. This will allow you to influence profitability at every stage of the sales cycle. Gross profit per deal adds up to overall gross profit for the business.

Finally, the technology used to manage sales opportunities is an important element to closing the highest sales number you possibly can. There are many affordable CRM solutions in place such as hubspot, pipedrive and breadwinner.

It is always important to build your sales pipeline and invest time and resources to achieve your goals – try and have every piece of the puzzle in place to get the best possible results.
Technology – reporting, time management, organisation

Embrace technology! Many businesses have turned to technology as a way of ensuring their survival during the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been a dramatic and successful shift towards remote working – workers are productive, and communication is high due to the technology which is available and as a result, managers are now measuring performance by outcome and not by the hours worked. The benefits of this are reduced overhead costs, better time management, happy staff, and increased productivity for many businesses.

Technology and an ABJ recommendation

Many businesses have turned to technology to help with organisation and planning. At ABJ Solutions we use many tools to drive efficiencies and ensure that businesses are operating at optimum capacity and one piece of technology that has been super important during the last few months is Float. Float provides businesses with a cash flow forecast with the ability to look at many scenarios. It is easy to use and over the coming couple of weeks, I will post a blog on Float and its many benefits.

Conclusion

Covid-19 has created very uncertain economic times for businesses, and it is more important than ever to know your business position, giving you time to plan for the months ahead and understand profitability and your cash flow. Businesses should invest in SMART technology to operate efficiently and to make better informed decisions.

Let Us Help

If your business has a turnover of over $1 million, ABJ Solutions is offering a complimentary 1 hour meeting to help answer questions and model critical decisions with you. Get in touch with us today so that we can help guide you through these challenging times.