Interesting times to be a part-time FD in the SME market at the moment – trying to produce forecasts for 2008/9 for one of my businesses and to predict the levels of demand, hence staffing resources and working capital requirements is like sticking a finger in the air when you have the shifting sands of currency movements, interest rates and predictions of job losses across the board.
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“So where do you keep your money then Mike?” was the question posed to me by one of the MD’s with whom I work after the news broke about Bradford & Bingley recently.
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It’s been a very busy few months for us but finally we’ve concluded our merger with a major competitor and now it’s all about focussing on the post-integration stuff – the details like e-mail addresses, business cards, billing cycles, PR etc; the strategic stuff of team building, culture and business growth.
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I spent a couple of days last week at a business exhibition in Wales – an interesting experience in more ways than one with monsoon like weather conditions coinciding with England’s final one day cricket match against South Africa and only 18 balls being bowled.
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Back from holiday to the usual virtual mountain in the Outlook inbox – a quick scan through to see what is really urgent and what can wait.

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I’ve been thinking about CPD over the last few weeks and how best to most effectively keep myself updated.
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We spent some time yesterday discussing the Business Continuity Plan for the business; we focussed on how having spent much time drawing it up there were constant changes to the business that necessitate revisiting the plan and revising it.
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Late payment has always been an issue for small companies and in the current economic climate where cashflow becomes even more important then it’s really important that SME’s are on top of their credit control procedures.
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Many of my businesses are reacting to the various price rises that are now filtering through in different ways – looking at the necessity of making that journey, car sharing, travelling by train, flexible working, conference calls etc – but the one unavoidable consequence of rising prices is going to be increased pressure on salaries in the coming months.

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Much of this week has been spent preparing for next week’s visit by the auditors – a chance to re-examine how we do things and how we categorise expenses.

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