JPAbusiness

In mid-April we published an infographic detailing our expectations around the business activities we would all need to engage in following the initial impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

The three phases of activity we expected to follow the initial impact were: survival, protection and emergence.

Our take was that if you want to stand a chance of getting out of crisis mode and through to the other side, intact and ready for a viable future, you need to explicitly understand each phase and work your business, strategies and decisions within their constraints and conditions. 

For most of our clients and other businesses, with the exception of those significantly impacted by the ‘Stage 4’ lockdown announced this week for metropolitan Melbourne, we’re currently in the ‘protection' phase of our predicted timeline. We thought this might be a useful time to publish a reminder of what we believe businesses should be considering at this time.

The novel coronavirus has brought many changes to the way we work, but are these changes just a temporary blip, or here to stay? And if they are here to stay, what will our workplaces of the future look like?

Here are some of my predictions for what work will look like in the post-COVID-19 world:

• Video will be the go-to mode of first communication.
  
  
• Travel budgets will be dramatically reduced – physical travel and face-to-face meetings will be reserved for essentials (i.e. key client meetings, business development).

This week we're sharing Part II of our video series on how to communicate with your bank, financier or investors, and what pieces of information to share, if you’re looking to secure funding in the current environment.

The goal is to ensure your financier has a clear understanding of how your business is tracking, so they can feel confident in supporting you.

Last week we focused on profit and loss information. This week's video details the critical elements of working capital you need to share with your financier.

In this video I’ve discussed how the COVID-19 situation is impacting different elements of business and the Australian economy.

I’ve used the video to share my analysis, as well as some of our clients’ feedback, on the following questions and issues:

• Will people want to buy and sell businesses in this market? If ‘yes’, how will those deals be financed?
• Taking the leap into online – finding the ‘upside’ of social distancing
• Virus driving ‘Uber-style’ disruption in commercial property market – what’s the outlook post-crisis?
• Clients taking advantage of potential positive environment for succession
• What tough decisions should we be making in our businesses at this time?

Over the past few weeks we’ve published a number of COVID-19 related blogs to assist our readers in navigating the new and emerging business landscape.

Like most people, we didn’t see the new coronavirus coming, so the blogs and resources we’ve shared have been a result of pretty ‘on the fly’ thinking about how we could best support you.

This week we’ve consolidated those resources into a presentation format to show you how they tie in together and can be used in your business.

As business owners and managers trying to operate in these extraordinary and uncharted times, my advice is to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Because we don’t know when things will turn around and there’s so much uncertainty, it’s easy to say it’s all too hard to do meaningful business planning. I beg to disagree!

Now is just the time to do some straight-forward scenario planning, along with risk assessments and identifying critical strategic and operational priorities.

In this blog we’re sharing a series of questions and suggested actions to help guide you through that process.

Earnouts and contingency payments are typical features of business sales in the Australian, European and US corporate markets.

In our work in Australia, we are seeing them increasingly used in the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) market and we’re often involved in structuring these deals, either from a purchaser’s or vendor’s side.

If you are considering selling a business at the larger end of the SME market, with a longevity of orders and forward earnings, it’s important to consider the concept of earnouts and contingency payments because it will come up from interested parties.

It’s also important to recognise that earnouts as part of the purchase price have capital gains tax implications, so expert advice is essential.