As well as the cash flow management measures already mentioned in our previous post, in our Small Business Recession Report and Guide we asked respondents what positive management steps they had taken over the past twelve months. Their experiences should hopefully provide inspiration and insight to our readers. We have split the responses between business strategy and HR.
Business strategy
Focused only on existing business/clients
Protecting and serving the customers you already have and rely upon, was a dominant strategy adopted by nearly half (45%) of our respondents. In the vast majority of instances (80%) our respondents have witnessed the success of this strategy and not a single business owner surveyed felt this had been unsuccessful with the remainder unable to definitively state that there was a positive impact upon the business.
Improved customer care
Obviously this is closely linked to the point above and while slightly fewer of our respondents (38%) had deliberately adopted this strategy as a response to the recession, those that did had an extremely positive experience – 83% reported that this approach had proved successful for them and, yet again, there were no negative experiences.
Tapped into e-Commerce
While not appropriate to all types of business, 18% of our respondents had invested in e-commerce during the recession. Of those, 63% felt it had been a successful thing for them to do, 21% were unsure and 16% felt that there had been no positive impact.
Dramatically changed the focus of the business
Understandably, few businesses took this course of action but nevertheless, the fact that 14% did will surprise many and shows that any accusations of complacency in the face of a recession would be unfounded when it comes to small business Britain. This bold strategy was also reasonably successful for those businesses involved, with just over a half (53%) reporting success and only 15% saying that it had failed to deliver the turnaround they were seeking.
HR
Worked to improve employee productivity
Top of the list of HR initiatives was to actively seek ways to improve employee productivity. For many businesses, the employees are the most important and most expensive asset and so working to ‘sweat’ this asset is a sensible course of action and 78% of our respondents found it had proved to be successful for their business.
Offered flexible working
As mentioned, the employees are often the most expensive asset the employer has and finding ways to reduce the monthly wage bill is prudent. One in five of our respondents successfully offered flexible working and of those 82% said it had been successful with the rest waiting to see what the impact will be.
Hired new talent
Contrary to popular belief, recessions are not simply characterised by redundancies. To prove this point, one in five of our respondents hired new talents into their organisation and 87% found this to be a successful course of action.
Invested in training
A decent proportion of our respondents, 17%, invested in training despite the recession. However, unlike the other HR strategies mentioned above, this was not as overwhelmingly successful. Having said that, the fact that 61% saw a positive impact of this strategy on their business and only 8% said that this approach had not worked for them still goes to reinforce that having a well trained workforce is more often than not a sound investment strategy.
Comments