As an Insolvency Practitioner I am regularly referred potential clients by accountants to advise the client on financial difficulties. Very often it is at a point where they are already in financial distress, and usually have been in distress for some time! Why do people/businesses/companies get into financial difficulties to start with?
An article (here) by Robert Craven (The Director's Centre) very clearly spells out why businesses get into difficulties: bad management... There are occasions when an unexpected outside factor (such as the failure of a critical customer or supplier) can knock a business for six, but even those situations can largely be anticipated by forward planning and keeping an eye on matters. I spend approximately 40% of my time managing my own practice, quite apart from doing the work and marketing/development etc. A lot of directors spend much less than that and very often with small businesses it can be less than 10% of "the management's" time...complete folly!
I like Mr Craven: he's very direct in his opinions and advice, very much like me! I tell it as it is, rather than how a client might want it to be. Some of his ideas I don't subscribe to, but by and large what he says makes sense and can be applied generally across the board for any size of company.
As an Insolvency Practitioner, I'm not just here to advise when things go bad. Very often a regular (even once a year) review of a business by me, looking at it from a potentially insolvent point of view, can give an independent view on how the business actually is, rather than how directors perceive it to be. Playing Devil's Advocate can often turn up surprising results and allow directors to plan ahead and deal with problems before they become critical.
Go on, you know you sometimes need help - don't be afraid to ask for it...!
No comments:
Post a Comment