Recession Insights - Planning & Strategy

The message is clear. Businesses that review their business plans monthly are most likely to be riding the economic storm. According to our research, they are 42% more likely to be unaffected or booming during the slowdown. Businesses who are confident about the future are also three times more likely to have had a strategy in place for a worsened economic climate than those who fear for their survival.

One in twenty SMEs admitted that they don’t really have a business plan of any description (never mind a revised strategy for a global slowdown) while 17% said that their business plan only gets reviewed and revised once a year. At the root of this problem is the fact that 62% of all SMEs have never had to face a slowdown before. They never really needed a plan when times were good, and never anticipated that they would need one for the future. Six out of ten SMEs did not have a plan or strategy in place for a worsened economic climate.

A worrying trend for the wider economy, and indeed the future, is that the ‘young guns’ who have thrived for the past decade or more through good economic conditions were least likely to have put a strategy in place for bleaker times. Two thirds did not have a plan ready for harsher times, compared to 40% of 55 year olds, who by virtue of their age and experience, have seen something similar (if even vaguely) before. The younger working nation have much to learn from mentors of previous slowdowns and recession.


Extract from: A Guide To Plain Sailing Through The Recession - Plantronics - www.plantronics.com.

The full guide can be downloaded here: http://www.sme-guide.co.uk/

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