There aren’t many companies that didn’t face a cash flow crunch this past year, or aren’t facing one now.
Management experts Deloitte offer several ways to preserve cash during down times.
Their proven suggestions are based on their experience working with tens of thousands of companies.
6 Tips to Improve Cash Flow and Profits in a Printing Business
1 – Actively manage payables, receivables and inventory. When times are good, companies tend to get lax about managing these. Unless there is a system in place to track, review and make ongoing adjustments to these three items, cash flow can take a fast and surprising hit when things go south.
2 – Avoid or delay capital expenditures. The downside is this can stunt revenue growth. (We have a workaround to help you grow your company without capital expenditures, below.)
3 – Review and manage variable costs such as travel, entertainment and discretionary spending.
4 – Distribute workflow among staff (cross-training) to avoid layoffs. If layoffs are unavoidable, reduce staffing to a level where more overtime (and not necessarily more staff) will cover the busy periods.
5 – Convert fixed costs to variable costs wherever possible. For example, sell assets and lease them back.
6 – Deloitte also suggests contract manufacturing and third-party warehousing as an excellent way to reduce fixed costs.
A trade partner like Western Trade Printing can help companies navigate and even prevent these cash flow crunches in three significant ways:
- Reduce capital expenditures. For example, why buy or lease a 4 or 5-color press when you can use ours as a resource?
- Convert fixed to variable costs. Sell under-utilized assets and use WTP! to fill the gap.
- Reduce other fixed costs with our trade printing, finishing, fulfillment, and warehousing services.
The added benefit is that as companies reduce expenses and increase cash flow by working with printing trade vendors, they continue to grow revenues.
They often get substantial growth without the stress of more internal production headaches.
The key is to not "wait and see" what happens, hoping for a quick return to normalcy. It could be years away.
Instead, be proactive and strategic, starting today.
To find out how this might work for you, Contact Us or call me direct at 559-251-8595 ext. 411.
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