Jeopardize your business by not having a Commercial Recovery Plan (CRP)

With many companies getting prepared to resume work on 15 May, I thought that I should share a few suggestions, not exhaustive though, about the contents of a comprehensive Commercial Recovery Plan (CRP) to get back on track for short, medium and long-term profitability.

CRP Checklist:

• OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP: without a charismatic captain, the ship cannot sail safely in these uncertain times. We have surely got charismatic leaders in this country. That's why Mauritius has always been cited as an example for the world in many ways.

• STOCK: Check your stock level (supply chain strategic rethinking) and re-examine your product mix. You might have to rationalize your product list for the sake of profitability

• PRICE: Establish your pricing strategy; my advice is not to reduce your price but instead, give frequent discounts. With COVID-19 outbreak, demand has become ever more price sensitive. So, you can stimulate demand through the right price tactics

• RTM: Do you still have the right Route-To-Market (RTM)? Evaluate your distribution network and system.

• CASH: Review your working capital level; cash is king these days. Beware of FOREX fluctuations and shortage if any.

• PAYMENT: Do you still have the right payment system and credit term policy to maintain and increase demand for your products?

• COMMERCIAL TEAMWORK: Motivate your sales force and do not forget that your sales team has been loyal to you. Thus, think twice before you decide to take tough decisions if you volume is down or for other reasons. Encourage teamwork with all departments.

• BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: Ratio analysis of your profitability, liquidity, efficiency and debt-equity level

• MARKETING: don't just cut your marketing spend because others are doing so. Maybe they have a higher brand awareness level than your brands and thus, slashing the advertising budget will not harm their brands. So, evaluate your brand strength well and then, assess if you need to curb your marketing spend. During this economic turmoil caused by COVID-19, it is better to invest in direct marketing to re-ignite demand than to run a pure branding campaign immediately. Therefore, regular and creative sales promotions (with discounts, sweepstakes or bundles among others) are likely to bring in revenue and profitability. Remember to do a thorough demand forecasting and demand sensitivity analyses when you review your budgets. So, you need to have a sales-marketing-operations roadmap for the immediate future and medium term. Some marketing themes for your campaign after the lockdown could be: "Back to Work", "Home Sweet Home", etc. In addition, don't forget that Marketing is about managing customer relationships at a profit. Hence, know your customers well through systematic customer insights from the field team and/or research. With COVID-19, consumers' online and offline behaviours have changed. DON'T LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR BRAND ESSENCE THOUGH. By that, I mean to say that you should not try to be everything to everyone. Your brand positioning should be super clear so that you develop an effective segmentation and targeting strategy.

• CHURN MANAGEMENT: with a good CRM system, manage customer loyalty very closely. In other words, know who are still your loyal existing customers, new customer acquisition and customer attrition or leakage. By so doing, you will be able to develop prompt customer retention and win-back plans and to execute quickly.

• RE-BUDGETING: as painful as it might be, COVID-19 has changed all your strategic assumptions, thus, requiring that you rethink your strategic business plans for the 2020 and for the coming years.

• SET SMART OBJECTIVES FOR ONE AND ALL: my advice is to have not more than 3 crystal clear SMART objectives for everyone, from the top to the "bottom" of the organisational hierarchy because for instance, how many people can recall 10 objectives?

• SHOW EMPATHY AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEAM: this is not just the role of the HR Team but the responsibility of all leaders of the organisation. Be patient, supportive, compassionate and listen to get a good feel of your team's motivation level.

I hope that the above non-exhaustive CRP checklist will be helpful for your business to recover quickly and in a sustained manner. I WISH YOU COURAGE AND DETERMINATION TO SUCCEED. "YES WE CAN."