Page 14 - GBC Fall 2022 Eng

Tips to Fight
Here are a few suggestions from BDO Canada
for you to consider as you fight inflation at your facility, in addition to the thought starters outlined by Jeff Calderwood, CEO, NGCOA Canada, in his publisher’s message, “Don’t Let Inflation Dictate Your End Results” on page 8.
There are other strategic initiatives your
business can take as well, such as:
Inflation!
• Conduct a business assessment—Analyze overall business performance and cash flows to look for areas where there’s an ability to stop profit margin leakage, room for improvement, and opportunities to grow. This might include a review of your procurement strategy to see whether it makes sense to diversify or consolidate your supply chain.
•Revisit your capital structure—Businesses are typically supported by a mix of debt and equity. Assess the different options (senior, mezzanine, or convertible debt; preferred and common equity; and government loans and grants) and adapt your capital structure to better manage costs while also providing the resources to operate and grow.
• Perform an 80/20 optimization of your business (customers, products/services, pricing)—Typically, 80% of an organization’s profit often comes from about 20% of its customers and products. Look at your data to find out what customers or products are your biggest money makers. Consider the impact of no longer selling products or serving customers that provide little to no profit. Focusing your resources on servicing your most profitable products or services will increase margins.
• Restructure the balance sheet—Now may be a good time to restructure your balance sheet to account for rising interest rates and debt servicing obligations, increased liabilities, the impact on profitability, and a potential decline in both enterprise and asset valuations.
• Get professional advice—Experienced advisors can provide you with many different services to get your business back on the right track.
Your business has many options available to deal with rising inflation, but there is no easy answer:
• Raise prices—This is often easier said than done. Getting customers to accept a price increase without impacting demand is a challenging proposition in any market context.
• Alter/re-engineer your offerings and value proposition—Other options could include reducing the size or volume of a product, changing the design or formulation of your product using less expensive components, or streamlining the service you are offering, but keeping the price the same. This is sometimes known as shrinkflation. At what point will your customers perceive an erosion of value that will impact your sales?
• Absorb costs—How much is too much? In sectors and businesses with more generous margins, there may be a way to absorb some of the cost increases in the short term. But this is not a viable long-term strategy for financial success, and given the level of inflation being seen, it may not even be a realistic option. It will be bad for the bottom line and could result in financial trouble over the long term.
Reference:
“How Businesses Can Mitigate Inflation Risks”, BDO Canada, July 20, 2022, https://www.bdo.ca/en-ca/insights/advisory/business-restructuring/how-businesses-can-mitigate-inflation-risks/
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