The Atlas Six Essential Business Survival areas are not just for turbulent times but for the lifetime of your business

At Atlas Business Group we bring answers and actions to our clients, not just illumination to the problems. Each of the six areas of major issues and potential crisis identified here give an assessment of the business hazard, and an indication of the Atlas solutions that could help put your business back on the right track.

1 - Cash

The cost of borrowed money is at its lowest for years; lenders, however, remain tantalisingly cautious. This makes cash funding and liquidity an essential priority for your business survival each and every week. Reliability is paramount; reassuring your bankers and suppliers; underpinning the promises to your customers. Get the projections wrong and the effect could be devastation to your business.

Solution:

Atlas do not have a magic piggy bank dispenser for free cash, but Atlas do have a very good answers to the whole area of credit risk, banking, settlements, forecasting, electronic funds transfer and electronic data interchange transaction processes which could be just what you need to keep your business on the right track.

2 – Pricing

Most businesses make or lose most money on how well they manage selling and buying prices and margins. In volatile depressive time the margin vice tightens hard. Standard price lists are compromised by downward customer pressures colliding with upward costs from sudden surges in exchange rates, materials and transport costs.

Solution:

Atlas have powerful pricing policies and systems approaches to help clients maximise the value of each customer and to respond quickly to adverse shifts in costs.

3 – Lean Business

Tough times are survived by those lean and agile across every area of the business whether this is in HR, plant, materials, or marketing. Lean doesn’t mean the same as cheapest, but it doesn’t mean working hard at maximising efficiencies in working practices.

Solution:

Atlas have techniques and systemic approaches that can help clients to review work flow processes, eliminate stumbling blocks and eliminate waste.

4 – Effective Communication

We’re sure that you probably have the best products and services in the world, and have more ways of communicating these than ever before ... and yet still problems arise. Why do you sometimes drop the ball, or miss the deadline, or worse-still be required to absorb escalating rework costs?

Solution:

Atlas help clients work better at effective, timely two-way communications through appropriate delivery channels such as database web-trading, SIP voice, and document management systems to get the right message, to the right audience, at the right time.

5 – Value and Quality

It doesn’t matter if you are offering the cheapest set of chips or the most expensive jewels on Earth, if the value and quality perceived by the buyer is nil (or totally misunderstood) then the reality is no deal, and stock left on the shelf.

Solution:

Atlas consultants help you to escape beyond your own perceptions and to appreciate those of your customers with innovative techniques that focus on real value and quality.

6 – Risk and Compromise

Most wise business judgements are not best decided on simplistic do-all/do-nothing extremes but are a blend of trade-offs, compromises, and balancing-acts. Being able to assess the potential risks and changes effectively at the right moment makes the difference between success and failure for your business.

Solution:

Atlas works with clients to help them understand both the obvious and subtle choices and compromises they need to make in order to defend effectively against the thinkable and unthinkable outcomes that can assail all businesses.