Thought Piece

For example, when a business suddenly outgrows its processes, systems and ways of working, it must first recognise that moment and then decide how best to respond. If management jumps too quickly into new ways and new systems, it could throw a spanner into exactly what was working so well for them in the first place. In contrast, a business that is loath to adopt new ways will languish in its tried and trusted comfort zones, while its systems creak or, even worse, burst at the seams.

Hanging on too long to the old ways, jumping too quickly into new ways, or simply picking up the wrong ways, all run the risk of failure. Classic symptoms often appear as overtrading, borrowing too much, and setting sales and delivery targets that are way beyond what other functions in the organisation can support.

So how do you tread the path between lost opportunity and possible failure? A rule of thumb is that when business is going well and everything fits together, there is no need for outside support. Yet, if the business is running at top speed but not moving forward, experience matters.

This is as true for an individual entrepreneur as it is for a board of directors. Successfully negotiating your way through a Transition Point usually takes a raft of incremental improvements. The challenge is to prioritise the sequence in which these improvements are introduced, and then to implement them - measuring the effect of each one as it comes on stream. It's also true that there is an optimal time and an optimal set of circumstances to plan and implement a Shared Services Centre, a more powerful ERP system or an improved invoicing module.

It is a balancing act: the secret is to recognise that you have reached a Transition Point and then to take measured steps. But another problem facing businesses when they reach aTransition Point is that they struggle to find good independent advice. Typically, they will be offered a plausible immediate solution; but often it is someone simply desperate to sell them something, or it is a corporate consultant more accustomed to working with the problems and solutions of big business.

Having worked with many companies in different sectors and with all types of capital structures, we know that there really are no readymade 'solutions'. Any business must be approached at its Transition Point with a set of questions, rather than a set of answers.

To listen to an audio recording of a discussion about Transition Points between Peter Charles and award winning Financial Journalist, Peter Williams, click here.

Banks are not charities. But they do calculate the lifetime value of the customer and they understand the reputational risk to themselves of the slash and burn exercises they are sometimes accused of.

That brings us to the role of the banks, so often the largest creditor and certainly the one with the most intimate knowledge of how a company is faring. We all love a stereotype and the heartless, faceless bank pulling the plug on sound businesses over a minor blip sits deep in the business consciousness. But not all banks fit this caricature. "We want to work with management of a business facing difficulties to help identify the issues and provide solutions to get them back on track," says a senior manager with a leading retail bank. "We can make the most impact when the problems are identified early. We are keen for management to be open with us."

Banks are not charities. But they do calculate the lifetime value of the customer and they understand the reputational risk to themselves of the slash and burn exercises they are sometimes accused of. Most solutions to business difficulties involve access to more funds and/or different products (hedging, leasing, factoring) and that all adds up to continued and profitable involvement for the bank.

A Repositioning Turnaround may mean divestment of a troublesome subsidiary. It may mean embarking on (yet another) cost-cutting exercise, including turning away revenue opportunities if they are not of a sufficiently high margin. It most certainly involves a first step of getting an impartial and pragmatic overview of what the problem actually is, from Turnaround Professionals who also know the kind of language with which to talk to banks. The moment you take this kind of decisive action, you're likely to discover that there's no crisis, no drama, only urgent action that must start now.

Peter Charles 2010