I read a great article in Wall Street Journal about layoffs but more specifically to trim costs on a broad based manner - ask your Assistant to print it for you. It gives examples of reducing salaries, unpaid vacation and even cutting back on expenses such as travel and mobiles phones. You may very well get more benefits by cutting ‘across the board’ on expenses rather than shedding critical staff. Here are a few examples:

Hewlett-Packard, which was already cutting 24,000 jobs following a big acquisition, cut salaries by 2.5% to 20% and reduced contributions to employee 401(k) plans (i.e. pension plans). Last year, HP asked employees to take unpaid vacation days and extended a planned holiday shutdown to two weeks.

Test-and-measurement equipment maker Agilent Technologies Inc. is taking a similar approach. It subsequently linked a portion of all employees’ base pay to its financial results, so costs fall automatically when profit declines. In December, Agilent trimmed salaries an additional 10% and said it would eliminate 500 full-time positions, freeze hiring, limit travel, cut temporary workers and mandate unpaid vacation.

Last idea: Ask your employees where to cut! You cannot possibly know all areas where fat can be trimmed. Executives at Commercial Vehicle Group in the US asked four employees to devise a plan to save an additional $50,000 USD. The group identified $600,000 in potential savings, including office supplies and cellphones, which it presented to CEO. “They went after everything,” the CEO said.

Difficult times require you to sharpen your own skills. Take classes, read books and network with others in your industry so you can learn from them.

In one minute during my last networking meeting, a Marketing Director of a Global hotel chain gave me his top tip that they were implementing. They were proactively calling corporate customers to reduce the corporate ‘per night’ rate - even before customers were calling. That provided me with me inspiration, a new idea for my web site and a reminder that ‘you need to get out of the office and talk to people” that is, networking.

Get involved in your Business association and make sure you are on top of your game. Look for joint venture opportunities.

Make yourself more efficient by outsourcing services that consume your valuable time. For example, if you are doing the bookkeeping for your business, hand that off to someone else so you can have more time to focus on what you do best. Determine your priorities. Where should you be spending your time? What can you do to make your company bigger, better and stronger? Leave the worrying to your competitors and instead seek out opportunities and stay positive.

When you put the right energy and focus into your business-despite the economy-the results can extraordinary.

What are the lessons learned:

• 1) It makes sense to do research and development counter-cyclically.
• 2) Recessions can be really useful strategic opportunities.
• 3) Everything is cheaper during a downturn, including the cost of labor, materials, and office space.
• 4) There’s less competition, both from incumbents that are trying to put out their own fires and from startups that find it harder to raise money.
• 5) Tough times force entrepreneurs to work on their business models earlier, so they end up reaching profitability more quickly than when money comes cheap. “The companies are tougher because they were tested during a tougher time”.
• 6) In the case of Lotus software - another survivor, the owner said “If a product meets an unmet need, it doesn’t matter if the economy is bad”.

Last message: Even money saving customers need to get your attention; they are trying to survive too!

Ok now you are thinking major integration, time and money? Wrong. Assuming you have a database of about 10,000 clients, you can either integrate the Excel files including customer data or get a small team to do data entry if the data is in paper form (i.e. contracts). The nice thing about Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that it’s a MS product and it can read and interact with all Office software. Cost: In the case of my two clients; one server license + 2 user licenses plus 30 man days (one person working one month) at integration comes up to 12-15k Euros. You don’t need Head Office approval and if Head Office hears about your new CRM, it is completely scalable.

I don’t sell software but the hospitality from the people at TotalSoft was amazing. They are local, they implement and in my client’s case, have an auto industry solution.

Message: Remember Step 5 - Over communicate to your customers. Implementing a quick CRM solution to communicate promotions, a reminder of your loyalty program, or just simply a ‘Thank You” note will ensure that customers keep you on top of mind. Proactive and consistent outbound communications are one more way to advertize and by putting a bit of money in a CRM, this will give you results now when times are tough and when things start to improve. In other words you need to do this anyway!

How are you communicating with your database right now?

Lately, Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the UK stated that the economy could begin to recover in April 2009. In fact Mr. Brown is pinning his political future on agreeing for a global response to the crisis with the G20 group of world leaders at the London summit.

He conceded that the London economic summit meeting in April needs to be the start of the global economic recovery. The G20 world leaders, including Barack Obama, were coming to Britain to work towards a “global deal and grand bargain”.

“You can see this is a global problem and it cannot be solved without global action, international co-ordination. That is why I have been pressing so hard that some of the measures we have adopted in Britain we can persuade other countries to adopt”. - Telegraph.co.uk

Now how charismatic or effective as a politician Gordon Brown really is should not be the issue here. He knows that historically recessions do end and someone has to step up to the challenge and make a bold prediction. Historically, this has been done before and someone else will do the same during the next recession in 6-8 years from now. Mr. Brown’s statement is that ‘event’ I was talking about. Good news may not travel as fast as bad news but it is nevertheless a step in the right direction.

You can be part of that event. Recessions end with statements of optimism and business leaders sharing that optimism. Go ahead and start making bold statements that this crisis will end. The worse that can happen is that you will be a few months short!

In the UK the number of online searches for retail discount vouchers jumped a massive 143 % in the final quarter of last year, while visits to banking websites also increased as customers sought the best deals in response to the interest rate cuts - something to come soon to Romania in my opinion.

One way to measure the effectiveness of your online presence is through vouchers (discount coupons) where customers can save some money when they buy your products/services. Question is: How do you provide online vouchers?

Answer: The discounts work in different ways: either they are a voucher that can be printed and taken into the store and handed over to the shop assistant at point of sale, or they are codes that can be used to shop online. The codes are bit early for some of us in Romania but what is preventing you right now from creating something on your web site and getting customers to present it at your shop?

source: Telegraph.co.uk

1) Promotional prices for brand names
2) A shift to price before quality
3) Desire to buy large quantities for extra savings
4) An improved  loyalty program ( i.e. points, loyalty card)
5) Less expensive variants of the same food product
6) Focus on Romanian suppliers over other brands since it is felt that Romanians will opt for local vs. international brands.

Message. Nothing “earth shattering’ here except that an industry that is virtually recession-proof has to change its product mix. How are you changing your product or service mix to cater to existing and new customers in 2009?

“People go online for inherent benefits like choice, price transparency and the ability to research prices, and these advantages are even more acute in an environment where people are watching their spending.” - Telegraph.co.uk

Message. This was in the UK, In Romania online shopping is exploding. Does your Sales plan include online shopping? You need to look at this - even conventional products can now be acquired online in Romania. It’s an inexpensive distribution channel and the market timing could not be better!

Selgros Cash&Carry chain, part of German group Rewe, plans to invest some €30-40 million this year in two new stores which are to create at least 600 jobs. - Business Standard, February 10, 2009

Wal-Mart adds to its shopping list. Across the US, Wal-Mart has pushed to convert discount stores into larger supercenters with full-service groceries. New supercenters will house traditional general merchandise, such as clothes and toys, in addition to a full-service market with fresh produce, a delicatessen, bakery, dry and frozen goods, and meat and dairy departments. If you’ve been in a Wal-Mart you will recognize that this is a new direction for them. This confirms their experience that these days, consumers increasingly hunt for bargains. - The Boston Globe, February 10, 2009

Food retailers will continue to do well during a recession. If they are not on your target list, maybe they should be!