What happens when your business relies on Christmas sales and the cash no longer lasts a year?
I prepared the business plans and projections for a business focussed on Christmas gifts for the B2B market where 90% of its annual sales were completed in the 4 weeks leading to Christmas. Where margins were buoyant the cash lasted however, a marginal decline in revenue with increasing direct and indirect costs led to cash reserves gradually deteriorating from 52 weeks down to 40 weeks. This became unsustainable.
This led to a fundamental strategic change in the business to import summer fruit drink concentrate, add the water and pack in cartons to resell to the consumer market. The individual cartons had a picture of the fruit used in the drink and when displayed together the wall created a large perfect display of fruit. It was very powerful marketing design. This was possible because of a well constructed and considered business plan with an integrated 3 year financial model where the plan was supported by the numbers, the numbers supported the plan.
Now is a great time to plan for the future.
During the last 30 years I have been providing transformational change and supporting growth plans for a range of businesses from SME’s through to PLC’s.
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