Practitioners will be faced with may of the conundrums presently facing their clients as the depressing effects of Coronavirus start to bite.

Key among these “conundrums” is whether to continue paying recurring costs – rent, salaries etc – or replace them with resources that can be turned on or off.

For example, practitioners could consider the following changes:

• Do you need a permanent office? Could the present working from home directive become the norm? Could you rent meeting rooms on an as-needed basis? Can staff be managed in this way? 
• Do you need in-house staff? Could you reduce the number of staff over time by “employing” sub-contractors?
• Could you outsource marketing?
• Could you outsource computer systems maintenance?

These are choices we have always had, however, when times are good there is a temptation to resource your practice ahead of what it actually needs at a point in time. The alternative is to stress resources until you can not longer cope and then find larger offices or take on more full time staff. This, inevitably, leads to an initial surplus of space or productive capacity.

Maybe this present crisis will require that we become more flexible in our approach in future? Having the ability to turn-on or turn-off resourcing, and its expenditure, may become key requirements in the balancing act to match resources with demand. 

The Coronavirus has shattered the glass ceiling. We can no longer take it for granted that free-movement, social mobility, and our ability to trade will always be possible. The ability to respond in short order to meet future challenges may mean the difference between survival and extinction.
 

Source: New feed