As I write this the sun is shining brightly and the cold
damp unseasonal (?) weather we have been experiencing is suddenly a distant
memory. OK the stock market is down (again), retail sales are down (again) and
Greece continues to teeter on the brink (again). However there is something
about a change for the better in the weather that seems to make the world,
however fleetingly, a much better place.
Of course businesses are extremely adept at using the weather
to excuse any number of calamities. Too much summer, too little summer, badly
timed summer (seriously), all are often used to explain away unexpected poor
performance. Interestingly weather is very rarely given the credit for good
things that happen in business. These naturally are down to the leadership and
wisdom of the management team.
Anybody who has ever organised an outdoor event, however
humble, knows how it feels to look skywards when the day in question dawns and
offer a suitable prayer for reasonable weather. However meticulously you plan
the thing, its success or failure is often down to the one thing that is never
within your control. All you can do it take precautions to mitigate any
downside.
Indeed the only predictable thing about the British
weather is it unpredictability. I am sure that the Met Office will be able to
provide ample statistics that show that it is right more often than wrong but
weather forecasts are only ever just that – forecasts.
The same goes for business planning and forecasting. The
chances are you will never get it totally right, but you can stack the odds in
your favour by understanding your key profit and cash drivers and modelling a
number of scenarios that impact on them. This will help you to assess and manage your risk so that
even if it does “rain on your parade” at the very least you already know where you have put your
business umbrella.
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Gratuitous name dropping alert (part two). I had lunch last
week with a Swiss Federal Councillor, Johann Schneider-Ammann. For those of you
who are not up to date with the Swiss political system, the seven member Federal
Council effectively acts as the Swiss head of state.
Each councillor is responsible for a number of key portfolios
within their departments, unlike our Cabinet Members who by and large only have
one. As Mr Schneider-Ammann, whose brief is economic affairs, noted following
the recent elections in France, he had to send congratulatory letters to all
seven of his new French counterparts! Clearly a good example perhaps of Swiss
efficiency…..
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