In the current crazy climate, many businesses are wondering what sudden changes may impact them and force them into different and often difficult shifts.
You could be forgiven for wondering the same, regardless of what kind of business you are. If you are unlucky enough to be in the hospitality or catering sector our hearts go out to you and we can only say how desperately we all need a return to normality.
However, if you are one of the businesses that was hit by the lockdowns but managed to maintain a semblance of trade you should be considering how you can reduce the impact of any future lockdowns that come into effect. We would like to offer some advice and guidance on this, that will of course, by its nature be generalisations, but some of them may be able to work for you.
So, how do you insulate your business as much as possible against lockdowns?
Prepare for Remote Working
By which we mean, make sure your staff are all set up with remote logins and emails they can access on their home computers. If you do not want them using their home computers, then you will need to supply them with laptops they can use.
Make sure your IT department (or IT supplier) sets up any remote access or staff laptop to be secure and safe.
You will need to train staff on remote logins and remote working. In addition, you will need to ensure that you have protected sensitive customer data or information from theft or improper access. This will require you to update your procedures and ensure your staff are aware of the rules.
Setup your Website and Systems for Online Selling Customer Service
Obviously, not every business will be able to sell online, but you can certainly make it much easier for customers to interact with you online. This reduces the contact they have with you, making them feel safer about dealing with your business.
If you are a business that can sell online, get an e-commerce website built and start selling online as soon as possible. Even outside of a lockdown this solution allows you to sell twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week all year long. It is the salesperson who never sleeps.
If your business is not suited to selling online, then you can ensure that your website and internal system (usually called a CRM) is ready to offer the easiest and most automated customer service experience possible. The more manual processes you can cut out the lower impact to your customers and staff, and the lower the cost to your business.
Set up Contingency Plans
This might sound fairly broad as a point, but that is because it will differ so widely from business to business. In essence, you have to consider, plan and test alternative ways to keep your business working, your supply chain functioning, your customers happy and your team together.
The more contingency plans, options, and alternatives you have at your disposal the more insulated your business becomes against unforeseen events.
It has sometimes been called crisis planning or business continuity planning.
Either way, it is a vital part of maintaining your business functions in unprecedented times and under extraordinary events.
Diversify
No business is under greater risk than one which sells only one thing to a very limited customer base. Only one thing needs to go wrong, and the company can immediately find itself in dire straits, or even out of business altogether.
Diversification allows you to develop multiple streams of income, widely different customer bases and products and services subject to completely independent market forces. This not only gives you numerous different avenues to explore when looking at growing your business, but it insulates you against unforeseen outside forces that can cut off certain streams of income with immediate effect. By having more than one river feeding your reservoir you can prevent it from running dry.
There are of course a near endless plethora of ways to make your business more robust, more durable and more able to weather future storms and some of the above may not be suitable directly to your business.
That being said, the lessons above can be found to have been heeded in the histories of most successful enterprises.
If you would like to discuss how you can sure up your business for a better future, please give us a call or drop us a message today.
Call us on 0203 150 0565 or email info@thealtitudeagency.com
