Turning a Business Around

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Turning A Business Around

How to spot the warning signs and keep your business healthy as well as how to survive a crisis.

'Badly needed'  Sir John Harvey Jones

'Inspiring and full of proven steps to help you trade out of tough times.'  HSBC Business Update

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Book's contents listed below

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

1. Introduction

• Why you should buy this book
• Why your skills matter
• Why you are critical in a crisis
• What you need to do and how this book helps
• Task: How much to do you need this book?

2. What is turnaround?

• Support for turnaround as an option
• Understand your options
• Insolvency Act 1986 Procedure
• sCriteria for a successful turnaround
• The phases of a turnaround
• The turnaround process
• How this book is structured
• Turnaround management approach

3. Spot the warning signs of business failure

• Why do businesses fail?
• What types of failure are there?
• Normal business failure
• How do you avoid failure?
• Symptoms of normal failure
• Underperformance
• Distress
• CrisisCheck your business’s health – spot the warning signs
• Healthcheck against symptoms and causes
• Accountant/bank manager feedback
• Credit scores
• Task: Take an A score test

4. Understand why businesses fail

• Causes of normal failure
• The five key areas
• Management structure
• Strategy challenges
• Financial control
• Poor operational control
• One off projects
• SummaryTask: If you do have a problem, how serious is it?

5. Understand your immediate financial position

• What do you need to know?
• Is the company insolvent?
• Do you have sufficient cash for the immediate/foreseeable future?
• Will the bank continue to support you?
• Obtain an up to date balance sheet
• Reorder assets and liabilities according to the relative priorities
• Restate assets at realisable values
• Identify and net off certain specific liabilities
• Apply debenture values
• Key points

6. Manage a real cash crisis

• Wealth warning
• Achieving balance
• The key survival steps
• Control the cash you have
• Get more cash in from normal trading
• Get in more cash or credit from elsewhere
• Reduce and/or control the cash going out
• Reduce the amount of cash you need to trade
• Improve profits
• Improve management

7. Understand and control your financial performance

• What do you need to know and how do you use it?
• Understanding profitability
• Understanding financial stability
• Using financial information
• What management/financial information do you need?
• Setting financial targets
• Task: Set financial targets for your business

8. Set your strategy

• It’s your business, so what do you want to do?
• Set your personal goals
• What trends affect your industry? (‘PEST’ analysis)
• How is your industry structured? (‘Porter’s Five Forces’)
• What products do you sell into which markets?
• Where are your products in their lifecycle and do you have appropriate portfolio
• What do your customers want? (Critical success factors)
• What is your competitive advantage?
• What is your unique selling proposition?
• Create an appropriate value chain
• Specific issues in family businesses
• Task: Set business goals and action plan

9. Manage your marketing

• What is marketing?
• Why is marketing an issue?
• Who are you going to sell to?
• How are you going to sell it?
• Tailor your marketing to your customer – the four Ps of marketing
• Manage the sales process
• Manage your sales forceKey points

10. Manage change

• Manage and motivate yourself
• Understand your business’s structure and culture
• Assess your team
• Key management assessmen
• tManaging people and the process of change
• Managing a project
• Get stakeholders on board and keep them there
• Task: Assess how well your project team operates

11. Manage the risks 

• What are the risks?
• Dealing with the strain
• Insolvency specific risks

12. Summary and conclusion

13. Further information