With the financial crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, it enveloped the whole Wall Street and spread to every corner of the world, which had a serious impact on the world economy. Whether it is an economic crisis or a financial tsunami, it is generally a 20-year cycle; We should take this seriously from our mentality and actions, but at the same time we don't have to panic too much. The coming of the economic crisis and the Great Depression is a new opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises with strong cold resistance and good internal strength.
I have many years of business management experience, which requires small and medium-sized enterprises to survive in the economic recession and at the same time be able to grasp the relevant market opportunities; The following work needs to be done:
First, from the boss to the professional manager to the core backbone of the enterprise, mental stability is the most important.
Scenario 1: There is too much negative information from the boss to the management. Enterprises from the boss to the management are caught in the quagmire of sorting out and thinking about negative information. As for employees, due to the spread of negative information, they may think more about their own problems.
Scenario 2: Negative information from industries and enterprises spread to customers, causing customers to panic. Therefore, orders are reduced, payment recovery is slow, and dormant account (bad debts) emerge one after another.
In fact, during the economic recession, enterprises with poor management, bloated personnel, weak innovation ability and unstable core customer base may be shuffled first; On the contrary, it is a rare opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises with strong innovation ability, leading cost and stable core customer base. Therefore, for enterprises with psychological preparation, if they plan ahead, practice their internal strength before the crisis (appropriate slimming, re-planning development strategy, maintaining sufficient cash flow, and enhancing the combat effectiveness of existing teams), respond to the economic crisis with confidence rather than panic, and believe that they can survive in the cold winter is the real beauty in the snow.
Second, in the period of macroeconomic turmoil, adjust the business strategy of enterprises in time and actively adapt to market demand.
Macroeconomic turmoil will definitely affect the income of consumers, industry users and government departments, and then affect their consumption intentions or procurement budgets. The only reason for the existence of enterprises is to meet the ever-changing consumption needs of target consumer groups. Therefore, tracing back to the source, aiming at the target market, starting from the change of consumer demand, and then examining the company's business strategy in the next few years, comprehensively examining and reforming the supply chain, product innovation, brand promotion, channel strategy, core customer group positioning and so on. Only in this way can we ensure that the enterprise has sufficient cash flow, stable terminal resources, stable sales growth and profit contribution to shareholders.
Third, maintain a prudent fiscal policy to ensure adequate cash flow for enterprise development.
Cash flow is so important that I believe it has become the financial information that every CEO and CFO must pay attention to every day. As everyone knows, how many companies with smooth business progress disappeared overnight because of the break of the capital chain. When the economic crisis comes, it is more important to maintain a prudent fiscal policy and ensure adequate cash flow for enterprise development.
First, be cautious about investment projects. In fact, when the economic cold wave comes, there will be many investment opportunities (such as mergers and acquisitions, product line transformation, the launch of new products and so on). ), but a basic principle is: we must correctly evaluate the payback period of new projects, carefully and scientifically calculate the cash inflow and cash outflow in the process of project implementation, and objectively and scientifically predict the market capacity to be entered.
(ii) Optimizing supply chain management. Realize the saving of procurement cost and logistics cost from the optimization process of supply chain. For example, on the basis of the evaluation of existing suppliers, establish long-term good cooperative relations with qualified suppliers, reduce the procurement cost of materials and extend the payment period to suppliers through renegotiation of cooperation contracts. At the same time, reviewing the turnover rate of inventory products and selecting the third-party logistics with low transportation cost and high service efficiency through bidding can effectively reduce logistics costs.
(3) On the basis of customer resource evaluation, by adjusting the price system, shorten the dealer's account period and speed up the recovery of accounts receivable. In the normal business process, enterprises often give certain preferential measures to their offline distributors to stimulate and encourage distributors to expand the sales share of their products; This policy can indeed stimulate and encourage dealers to distribute and promote their products to a certain extent, but at the same time, if the management and monitoring of accounts receivable are not in place, dealers will be in arrears for a long time, and even bad debts and dormant account will appear; In the period of economic depression, it is particularly important to evaluate the credit of dealers in stages and speed up the payment return. Specific measures are as follows:
In a quarterly or monthly cycle, evaluate the credit of dealers, appropriately increase the account amount for dealers with good credit (combined with their business scale and sales potential), and reduce or cancel the account amount for dealers with poor credit.
(2) According to the length of the billing cycle, set the sales prices of different grades of products, and through the stimulation of interest points, it is expected that dealers will pay back the money in advance (such as 2% sales discount for cash settlement to dealers, etc.). ).
Fourth, through the operation of the performance appraisal system, strengthen the construction of core employees, and truly let core employees create value for the enterprise.
In the period of economic depression, it is very necessary for enterprises to eliminate redundant staff, but it is more important to stabilize and expand core staff, because employees with strong innovation ability and strong execution ability can tide over the difficulties with enterprises and create value for enterprises. Specifically, the construction of core employees should focus on the following aspects:
A. Really implement a performance-oriented evaluation system within the enterprise; Through the operation of this system, redundant employees (employees with poor performance, poor ability and poor work attitude) will be stripped off.
(two) through the performance appraisal, give positive incentives to employees with outstanding performance and strong business ability. On the material level, core employees will not lose their income because of the economic depression; On the spiritual level, eliminate the impetuous and unsafe mentality of core employees (such as the fear of income reduction and layoffs when the economic crisis comes), and urge them to focus their enthusiasm and attention on the development of enterprises.
(3) Considering the factors of controlling labor costs, we can moderately reduce the fixed salary and increase the proportion of floating income linked to performance (such as the proportion of commission and commission for business personnel). Only in this way can we achieve a win-win situation in which both the sales income of enterprises and the floating income of employees are effectively improved.
Through project profit assessment and profit sharing, senior managers of enterprises can be encouraged to create value for enterprises.
It is true that the coming of economic winter is a severe test for every economic unit. However, as long as small and medium-sized enterprises are prepared in advance, they can not only withstand the test of economic winter by adjusting their business strategies, implementing prudent fiscal policies, and re-planning regional market layout. Moreover, due to the flexible mechanism and rapid decision-making, we may be able to find new cheese and new profitable units in the cold winter and become the vanguard of the industry.