Business turnaround is about reversing a business’s decline,
restoring it to stability and then re-growing its value. But business
turnarounds are about healing the sick, not attempting to raise the dead.
So, to achieve a turnaround, you will generally need to have
the following seven things present:
1.A viable business: Some core business that has future
potential growth and profitability around which the business can be rebuilt.
2.Time: Real turnarounds take time and if they are not
started early enough, they will either fail or require protection through an
appropriate insolvency procedure.
3.Cash: Turnarounds need money, often there are costs
associated with the initial restructuring
and then to finance the future regrowth of the business, and this money
must be found either from within the business (‘bootstrapping’), or from
outside by way of new investment or refinancing.
4.Vision: A clear goal to which the business is to be
directed, to provide both a target and motivation.
5.Management: Who have both the will to achieve the
turnaround (it’s your plan and vision) and also the skills (functional and
situational) to make it happen, or access to external resources who can provide
these skills when required.
6.Stakeholder support: Management cannot do it all by
themselves. They also need to take suppliers, customers, staff, bankers,
shareholders, and other stakeholders with them.
7.Confidence in the process: The stakeholders need to see
how management (who will be regarded as having got us into this mess) are going
to get us out again, and this has to entail a structured approach in dealing
with the problem.
Turnarounds tend to divide into three key phases and while
each phase needs to consider finance, people and marketing issues, there is
definitely a shift in priorities over time from finance to marketing.
