Recessions are like a corporate black death.
Creditor pressure and debtor delinquency are the buboes that point to the onset of a disease often made doubly fatal by the sudden withdrawal of bank support.
For most executives, weaned in the time when Gordon Brown had abolished boom and bust, the combination of retreating consumers, collapsing asset prices and a global credit crunch appears to create a perfect storm that threatens to overwhelm their business and their personal financial future.
Survival is already impossible for a number of companies
Administrative Receivers have growing workloads and are among a minority of companies that are still struggling to manage revenue and staffing growth.
Other companies are not yet bust – they may be approaching the cliff, they may even be staring into the abyss – but they are still hanging on. Some of these companies could survive – just by reading and applying some of the advice in this book.
Most companies, though, are still trading – revenue and margins are down, cash flow is a daily struggle, and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel – but they are still trading. Many of these could make a better fist of survival – just be reading and applying some of the advice in this book.
For a few companies, the recession offers unprecedented opportunities – opportunities to steal a march on a competitor, to grow inexpensively and substantially, and to position themselves for significant growth through the recession and, in particular, during the final anaemic stages of recovery and eventual growth. This book contains the competitive insights that, taken advantage of, might enable your company to ride the wave of creative destruction that wells up from the sea of struggle, leaving behind the flotsam and jetsam of the old economy.
Alan Calder, CEO of the fast-growing company IT Governance Ltd, describes in this book the hard, practical experience that he gained running businesses through the last three major UK recessions. He talks candidly about what worked, and what didn’t work – and how the most useful lessons always came from his experience of what hadn’t worked as planned or expected. He provides often surprising insights into topics as critical as cost and cash management, staff morale and motivation, essential sales techniques and longer term market positioning. He believes that innovation during a recession is as important as cash management and that success depends on finding the right balance between terror and optimism.
Buy this book today – your future’s worth it!