First and foremost, we are starting to understand the coronavirus outbreak is a human tragedy that we need to deal with affecting hundreds of thousands of people and there have been many tragedies and stories that are informing. But it also has a growing impact on the global economy right now.
At the same time, businesses and people should start to think about how we live and work to run this global economy together. Being all at home and hopefully taking care of everyone was a more important responsibility than ever. Taking care of family, friends, value chain, and society is also a major responsibility of every global citizen and entity. It is also important to manage the safety of the people and also improve the productivity to progress towards meeting the business objectives and accomplish its goals.
Most of the companies are evaluating how they plan to deal with the crisis that was new to millennials and baby boomers as well. The question that needs to be answered or a problem that needs a solution is “How can businesses adapt to this new change?”
It’s time for businesses to get into planning and this work needs to be done immediately. Making sure that businesses growing concerns are addressed properly and also ensuring your business has enough funds to be able to operate the business. Also charted accountants who are the trusted advisors to their clients, accounting firms must embrace technology that’s built and available for businesses to automate their compliance and workflow tasks and make room for higher-value service. Take, for example, Abacus Financials is a cloud-based accounting software where you will know where all your money goes and gives you required reports and process automation capability starting from less than 20 pounds per month per user, that’s less than 1 pound per day for a user.
Do many businesses need to reassess where they are now? And identify the ‘short term issues’ that are awakening. It’s important to know that we need a better plan to fight against it and it can’t be done only by governments, institutions, and communities of interest. This is a too big issue for any small or large enterprises across the globe as its direct impact has been on business cash flows, productivity loss, and less progress made to achieve the goals of an organization.
First and foremost, we need to take care of the people who are involved in business and take the necessary actions to keep the wellbeing of the business value chain. Businesses can play an enormous role by adapting existing technology and advancements such as online payments, direct debits, and leveraging cloud-based applications for improving productivity and reduce costs which impacts cash flows.
Most MNC’s are making donations, helping our associations, charities, and trusts to provide hope for people who are looking for it the most. Most importantly, when things start back to normal, every business has an enormous role to play with a sense of responsibility when doing what’s needed. For instance, we need to try keeping the border’s open, we need to keep up with the supply to address the demands and offer services that help businesses to meet the milestones.
All of this to be done in a transparent and ethical way and a good code of conduct. And the business needs to be very forceful and it helps in shaping the right policies for the public. There have been different responses from different governments around the world and some are more successful than others. There is a relatively good opportunity for new startups and existing small or large enterprises to play an enormous role in building a better future for the next generation and yes, it’s upon us. Most of the governments are putting good policies in place and at the same time, it required immediate actions and decisions.
What should small businesses rethink must be at times of crisis like this? What are the immediate risks?
The first thing is if you agree or not, you need to and if you own a small business then you must protect your business interests and act accordingly towards growing concerns. Even if it is a small business or a large enterprise it’s all the same. The key important thing is to protect your cash flow and if not then the situation doesn’t work for business, so that is the first thing.
Second thing is that you have to take care of your people there’s no question about it. And your people are your most important assets and never lose their trust. Also, what you can do is protect and reassure your business value chain.
The third thing is working on your business value chain which can be your suppliers, customers, and employees. There can be instances where your supplies from vendors are interrupted and payments from customers are pending. Also, your employees switching places and work getting delayed to canceled orders. All of these will have an impact on cash flow and if necessary take calculated risks and make wise decisions that address any issues. It’s time to embrace business agile practices which makes sure that your vendor issues, customer payment pending, and employee productivity issues are addressed efficiently.
And then last but not least, some of the products or services are in greater demand than ever for a shorter duration such as sanitization, remote offices, and consulting businesses. For example, if you are a business making perfumes then you can make perfumed sanitizer and something like that. So, there is a huge opportunity for sanitization, air purifier systems, and clean energy products all over the globe. So if you can identify a unique opportunity for your business, then you are back to the game and can play an enormous role in shaping the world.
Also, there’s an enormous opportunity like online trading, online education, telemedicine, online fitness training, online publishing services, and much more. After identifying an opportunity it’s possible to deal with any kind of business to be modeled with online or cloud operated business or cloud-enabled business that will be a more agile kind of way in doing it.
For all your accounting needs, please talk to us. And for your reference, we are a cloud based accounting software that completes your financials and accounting needs. You can register your interest by filling a small form and our team will reach back to you in no time.