Making a profit in a downturn
We have like many UK small businesses now experienced a sharp downturn. And as a lot of our business is to the financial sector which the ecomomic downturn has hit hard, thus impacting on us.
We are however, through efficiency and cost-cutting measures staying in profit even though we have seen a 33% reduction in our forward sales.
This has been achieved by reducing our workforce by 33% through a combination of natural wastage and redundancies, meaning we are a now a very lean outfit, where everyone has taken on new roles and responsibilities and learnt new skills.
We have all become more efficient at the tasks we perform and everyone mucks in helping everyone out.
I have cut back our sales and marketing budget by 80%, leaving us to focus on our core and existing customers, and waiting for an upturn in the economy before agressively marketing again.
I have set our 2010 budget on expecting a 50% drop off in business, meaning that anything better than that means we make a profit.
I don’t believe a word the government tell us about the economy, and think the recover is unlikely to happen before 2011.
Tags: cost-cutting, credit crunch, downturn, profit, recession