Getting your management information in order for business survival

22 May 2020

In the challenging environment that we all face today, have you been able to understand the performance of your business and have the information and capability to make the key business decisions that matter when moving forwards?

new challenges and scenarios for business owners

As a business owner, you may have faced new scenarios you would’ve never seen before. No doubt, this has required the need to flex and adapt work processes, and understand key levers in your business to help you survive, making quicker and faster decisions, based on management information that at times you wish were ‘better’ and more flexible.

Have you also had to explain the future capability of your business to funders and other stakeholders in a way that you haven’t had to before? Has the speed of collecting relevant information been a problem for you? We know that it’s a challenge to keep focus on these requirements while day to day business pressures build.

These scenarios will remain a challenge for many business owners. We’re now finding that business owners who are able to make quicker and faster decisions based on rich management information are now in a better position to adapt to this ever-changing world.

These are some of the key areas that businesses are benefiting from:

  • Ability to assess operational costings.
  • Projecting the cash flow impact of decisions.
  • Assessing the most profitable business opportunities.

This isn’t about having the best or most expensive systems, but a commitment to understanding business costs, having a repeatable structure to financial information and a clear view of what the most important KPIs are for the business. These requirements are important now and will be important going forward in order to maximise opportunities as we come out of “lockdown” and look to the future.

Preparing for tomorrow – beyond COVID

Preparing for ‘tomorrow’ and business strength beyond COVID is critical. Business owners that are prepared with dynamic and accurate information will be far more likely to not only survive beyond COVID, but more importantly will be back on the road to recovery sooner.

Why? It’s quite simple, having the right data at your fingertips in real time will help you to evaluate and maximise opportunities, and face challenges that will undoubtedly come beyond COVID. Putting you in a much stronger place, to be able to assess the constraints under which you might need to flex, rebuild and reappraise your business.

If you’ve deferred costs or taken out government loans are you clear on how your business needs to perform to meet these commitments? Is your business, its data and reporting agile enough to give you an opportunity to constantly be able to review your position and adapt in the face of any business “twists and turns” that still may hit you?

Can you say with confidence how much it costs you to generate your services or product? Will you be able to generate the financial information and maintain the strategic focus to flex and control the performance and capabilities of your business? Even in the face of changes to your business sector, customer and supplier behaviors that will undoubtedly arise?

Working together to become stronger

The Business Performance Improvement (BPI) Team at Fortus are already working together with owners to prepare and adapt their business systems, data, and management information to help put them in a strong position to survive and thrive beyond COVID.

Our team have extensive experience in supporting and advising on the improvement of financial information and decision making capability:

  • Automated financial reporting and flexible forecasting/ modelling
  • Business and strategic plans
  • Automated data extraction, making the most of existing systems
  • Job and operational costing models
  • Process and control understanding and mapping

However, there doesn’t have to be a lot of work involved in making significant improvements, that will see your business through these challenges now and in the future. We find that it is possible to make significant gains quickly and efficiently. This is through helping business owners refine the tools they already use and to simplify processes and information to focus on relevant data and key decision making.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Do you have a clear view of your future strategy and the information needed to implement it and make business critical decisions? And can you access the information quick enough?
  • Are you able to critically appraise and model the costs in your business going forward?
  • Are you able to see your future cash flows with sufficient clarity to be able to make decisions early enough?
  • Are you able to flex financial information to support making the right business decisions?
  • Will you be able to provide financial information to funders and stakeholders in the form that they require and the time that they require?

So, why not contact us today to take a look at your data and management information and to help you have the right tools to make quicker and faster business decisions based on real time information from your business?

Contact Neil Jones on 01604 273782.

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