Great Recession: hurt or helped your business?

The impact has been noticeable. There are plenty of contracting opportunities for short-term tactical technically skilled work. There is less need for strategic-focus consulting, which suggests that R&D investing is still low. My guess is that we have another 12-18 months before recovery sets-in.

David:

We are also in the Office Document Strategies field. We're up in Canada and the recession has hit differently here. We have seen a lot of delays and it has hurt but it also forced us to engage our employees more actively and keep them informed about what was happening. They are now actively engaged with all major deals, making sure they can help win the business. They also are looking for opportunities more aggessively. They always provided leads when something was obvious at a clients, but now they look much more carefully to find ways for us to help clients.

It's not all perfect but this has helped us weather the storm better than we might have.

Hello David
I am based in London, UK. People and organizations are moving towards enhancing or getting a brand here. Branding comes from the inside out, what is going on for a person or company that can be offered as part of the product or service that will make a difference in the outside world. Its just as important for solo players as large corporates. So although some of my work is coming from companies that are down sizing, they are certainly becoming more creative, or allowing people like me to be! As a result we ought to see, more inclusive workforces because they understand their role and that of their company better. Buyer organizations who can distinguish one company from another and make better informed decisions. The speed of the technology we use will also aid the speed of these changes in behavior and lead to gaps in the market that can be easily identified and filled with new business start ups. Summary, things are going well in the creative industries helping clients to stand out and be known, so the work is in place for the future growth.

This is a great discussion. What do you think about the overall effect of the economy on business' IT spending? Vote on a related poll....

http://www.focus.com/polls/view/how-has-economy-affected-your-business-it-spe...

David, the contraction in an economy may be a part of any business cycle. In recent such situation, enterprise organizations squeezed budgets & sidelined IT investments. Companies had to do more with less. Gone were the times of IT projects that took months to implement, yet deliver vague business value.

It is rightly said that, 'When Cash runs out that’s when Thinking Starts'. This statement was very true in recession. One can surely control how your company will move. There wasn’t much time to introspect all of the business & one couldn’t ignore even the smallest action in the company.

When times are tough, knowing where to cut – & where not to – is the key to survival. It's also the key to benefiting from inevitable opportunities & coming out the other side well positioned to grow. In tough times, the first step is to increase transparency which helps identify cost-centers, & then to more tightly align strategy with execution. This is why demand for BI, analytics & performance management is relatively strong even in a bearish economy.

Every action was happening so fast that organizations needed technology solution which does not waste time & resource & help them grow. It was more important than ever to see what the data says & indicates. The decision-making process required human thinking, but when supported by technology (BI) it generated far more value in multiples than gut felt decisions.

BI was the recession fighter. With the recession hanging around throughout 2008 & early 2009 like a high maintenance relative who doesn't know when to go home after the holidays, BI was the foundation for fighting back bad economic news, & creating entirely new approaches to measuring marketing, manufacturing, services, pricing & operations performance.

The markets have changed since than. It’s no more like buying heavy technologies which cannot be absorbed or become redundant. Enterprise buy small & use it extensively & reap its benefits. They explore the full potential of whatever they invest in. Customers demand business value instead of hype from IT investments.

So not necessarily all customers are rushing for big brands. Buying pattern has changed. BI is far from being a commodity as some industry watchers have claimed. Niche applications which can deliver promise are being looked upon & being bought. ‘Near Enough is Good Enough’ is what customers practice today.

For example I would like to share an example of MAIA Intelligence’s product 1KEY BI which is being used across various enterprises in different verticals for reasons like: simplistic, easy to learn & faster rollout.

Budget cuts have been limiting long-range thinking, requiring that new projects provide extremely short-term value. Organizations’ couldn’t lose sight of driving value over time. They want BI implementations to be able to deliver immediate value without sacrificing long-term strategy. Customers are opting for a lightweight BI solution that is easy to install, easy to use & which leverages existing IT investments & data sources. Also, they do not want to leave anybody out – ensuring everyone has the metrics they need to make competent, fact-based decisions. They want to make real-time data available to business users. When employees are plugged into the organization with timely, consistent data, they will naturally contribute to overall improved performance.

Customers no longer like to wait for a complete BI implementation to be rolled out & see its benefits after a year or so. They want instant access to the reporting analysis from their data within few days of the signup.

IT team at organizations along with business heads is looking for true business value within the investments they make. Now, they do not tend to go for much-hyped brands. Emerging players like MAIA Intelligence have been able to deliver the business value out of BI at cost effective price point with simplicity & faster roll out.

Read more: http://blog.maia-intelligence.com/2008/03/03/business-intelligence-hottest-in...

David, recession clearly hurt Croatian and reginal economy too.
The most obvious aftereffect was the fact that almost all that nowdays clients need and look for are experts in business, not just average consultants.
I see it as a great opportunity (and must) for companies to become excellent service providers.

I even just started my own company despite the crisis because
a. clients want more for their money
b. I will offer them just that (that is my opportunity)

So, in a way recession actually help me.

Good luck with your new company Hrvoje, you are right this is the time to make a difference and not look back. Live in the present and prepare for the future. It is changing as I write, I think to a much easier way of doing business. One that will be clearer and fairer for all. Lets hope the progress is greater too.

The recession created my business. I was let go from a re-sizing corporation. Right or wrong, it ended up being the push I needed to create my own business in PR and marketing communication. And with the "time off" I studied social media and networking, and am building this into my business offerings. Now, I'm finding a lot of companies that need the kind of expertise I (and people like me) can deliver. Many of us downsized can build opportunities from our varied corporate experience - and put that to work for ourselves, selling services to companies that are often desperately in need of personnel.

David:

I am in the document management business, yes that does mean copiers but, I do a whole lot more than that.
My business is up as clients look to spend less by right sizing their printing/copier equipment, lower the payment on their leases, consolidate printing expenses on their printers, or save on salaries/time costs by streamlining their document work flow via our document management solutions. Another place we are finding business better is on our mailing solutions side. Yes, we offer the equipment, but we also offer solutions which allow customers to take advantage of postal discounts, help them cull out bad addresses, and again, gain greater time management over this portion of their businesses. Business is up here, and it looks like it will only be getting better as we stay in this lousy economy.

David,

I am in the research and advisory industry for HR professionals and I am finding our business is booming because of the recession. Companies are all over process improvements right now and not reinventing the wheel when trying to finish projects etc. They will pay for good advice and to mitigate the risk of making a bad decision on their own. I am shocked to find out too that many businesses are flourishing in this economy for similar reasons. Maybe the sales of luxury items have been hurt by the economy, but for the most part I think companies just went on spending freezes as a " just in case" scenario.

You are right when you say this forced us to be more efficient in today's world and that has been the biggest help to my industry because that's our specialty.

Cheers

Very similar to what Iris said - it's actually been a terrific market for consulting. Companies are extremely reluctant to hire (especially at a senior level) but need to get things done. The ability to offer services on a more flexible, as-needed basis has been a big advantage.

Plus the costs of doing business have come way down.

In 2008 people were taking 4 months to pay me. This put me off investing. Now I am trying to get more sales after the long slowdown. I am in Australia.

Dwight,
May I suggest that you ask for 50% up front. I think this is fair way to do business. Also, if people are not prepared to meet you half way, then how much of a partnership is it? Good luck.

We develop software to support the formula manufacturing industries (food, chemical etc - anyone with a recipe).

We have found that the chemical business has been down across the board but the food sector has remained strong. I attribute that to the notion that we all have to eat but we all don't have to paint our houses.

So for us we have learned that we are pretty well diversified as long as production stays in the US.

The focus for many of our clients has shifted from Capacity Planning to Cost Control. They are finding ways to make more out of what they have. That includes material and labor. Seems that the labor force statistics will be slow to come back as many of our clients are pushing the existing folks harder before adding staff.

Definitely helped. In the first half of 2009, everyone froze, and new business was hard to find. Once the market was better able to understand the economic landscape by the 2nd half of 2009, our business starting growing faster than before the recession.

We're in the managed data center business. Businesses can outsource their IT data center infrastructure to us, typically at a fraction of what it takes to maintain their own data center and staff internally, so colocation and managed servers became a logic cost saving for many IT departments.

When times get tough, most business re-examine what they believe is core and what can be done outside for less. I'd be curious if most businesses that offer a more cost effective outsourced solution have seen similar growth patterns through this recession.

The great recession has nearly killed my business. The health care reforms and auto bailouts are a disaster. We need jobs! The we need to reduce the deficit. We must force China and India to play on a level playing field with us. The U.S. has lost much of its manufacturing base.

OK, this one is weird. I'm in the computer industry analysis business, and have been for 20 years. The company I was working for at the start of the recession shrank by 2/3, and hasn't recovered; I was among many who lost their jobs. As twice before when this happened, I went back to my one-person firm. This time, starting in March, small orders started to pour in, and I have now guaranteed a better year than I have seen in a decade, with 3 months still to go. In conversations with other analysts, it appears that a few other independents have seen the same thing, while larger companies as well as other independents are suffering more than ever before. None of us succeeders can quite figure out why.

I am in the film finance and film production arena and have seen a spike in both retail and institutional capital interest in investing in film, media & entertainment, etc because as a non-correlated asset class, our industry actually is immune to economic conditions so investors are educating themselves on alternative investment strategies instead of doing the same thing and hoping for a different result in stocks, mutual funds, hedge funds, oil & gas, real estate, etc

Read more: http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Investors-That-Want-to-Buy-Stocks-Or-Pre-IPO-Sh...

I am also involved in private equity consulting for startups and am seeing a lot of laid off workers and entrepreneurs looking to start their own businesses, raise money, etc and seem to have their own network of investors for their launch.