The actions of CEOs depend not only on the external environment, but also on the state of your company at the beginning of the crisis, its operational efficiency, its available resources as well as to what extent your predictions match the future.

There are businesses that cannot be stopped, such as utilities, agriculture, and medicine. There are areas of the economy that will only show growth during the quarantine, such as mobile providers, content creators, and food products, etc.

It’s high time for the owners and CEOs to ponder over what has changed drastically in their company, and some recommendations might help proceed to action.

1. Take care of your team

CEOs need to think about the maximum safety of their employees. What does this mean:

• Deal with the issue as systematically as possible. If your employees are physically at work, take care of the maximum compliance with the quarantine safety rules.
• Do not rush to bid farewell to your employees. Having lost specialists now, it will be difficult for you to return them after the end of the quarantine. At times, the employees themselves offer to leave at their own expense, with the guaranteed job at hand after their return. You need to understand and manage the expectations of people.

2. Carry out an inventory and asset diversification

Ensure greater control over your inventory (make sure of its availability and liquidity). Is it possible to reduce inventory and still have everything your customers need? What assets can you readily give up (to avoid overload), and what are the key ones for your business?

3. Build up your cash reserves

Secure a money stock in a currency that will not depreciate. It will help you survive or even buy assets that were previously unaffordable.

4. Do maximum for your customers. Do not lose profitable customers

Understand which customers or customer segments are profitable (look at the costs of selling to and servicing each category of customers – from the beginning to the end of the transaction), leave only profitable customers.

5. Look for new ways to deliver value to customers

6. Measure the results of the main business processes

Do not just reduce costs, commit yourself to efficiency. How can you work differently (remotely, using new technologies, selling online…)?

7. Negotiate with suppliers

A large part of your expenses is the purchase of goods or services; it’s not easy for everyone now — suppliers are making concessions. Also, this is the time to diversify your suppliers.

8. Don’t bet on just one big customer

It’s high time for diversification, if you haven’t yet done it. It’s the right for you to make sure of a wide variety of customers (besides, in any crisis there are industries that are less likely to be negatively affected, look for new customers there).

9. Get rid of your debts

Bank interest is accrued 360 days a year, it has no days off, holidays, and forced downtime. You need to at least repay all foreign currency loans or transfer them to UAH. In times of economic crisis, loans in UAH can devalue more than the interest accrued, and you can still take advantage. Do not wait for the loan to become a problem, contact the bank for restructuring in advance.

10. Improve your cash flow

Minimize your sales deferrals and receive deferrals or concessions (rent and other payments), where possible.

11. Reduce your cost

Look into what the cost of the Product consists of. Leave only what is really valuable for the consumer; what can be done differently or cheaper; how you can reduce the cost without reducing the value.

12. Remove all unnecessary expenses, all that does not create value for your Consumer

It is also worth considering a possibility of engaging specialists in business development to stabilize the situation in the company and an action plan with a clear road map.

Thanks to the right action plan and joint efforts of employees, the company will be able to survive these turbulent times more easily.

It’s important now to take a bold step forward and take the time to think about what the future will look like, how employees and customers will change as a result of this crisis, and what your company will need to do to meet their new needs. It is a good time to get to know your true needs a little better, isn’t it?

Do what you didn’t have time and energy for before, it’s time of change!

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AUTHOR: Tymur Korol Business Developer at Strategic