“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” - John C. Maxwell

In today’s times this quote should probably start with “Exponential change is inevitable.” With all of the factors currently happening in our world, with COVID, the upcoming election, social unrest, the economy – not to mention what might be happening in our personal lives – we are faced with more change and more uncertainty than ever before. For our businesses, our best hope is to manage and mitigate the negative effects of these changes as they occur, or ideally, before they impact your company.

To attain this goal we need structured processes and systems. Simply put: Control what we can and let go of the rest. An excellent resource for this is a recent eBook from NetSuite and yours truly called Managing Business Uncertainty; Helping Businesses Manage During Challenging Times.

The eBook outlines four key steps in understanding and addressing uncertainty in your business: 

• Gain visibility – use dashboards and other reporting tools to gain situational awareness.
• Understand processes – then optimize them. And don’t forget to ensure compliance.
• Implement systems with the right tools – cloud-based and integrated for maximum efficacy and ROI.
• Ensure proper strategies are in place do deal with uncertainty, both current and future.

The eBook includes checklists for each of the above four categories and beyond, and the checklists are very useful in assessing how well, or not, the business is prepared for uncertainty. And even though the core of the subject matter is written from a financial perspective, there are a number of other categories including people, performance, governmental resources, and more. 

Basically managing uncertainty boils down to three fundamental questions: What can I see? What can I control? What can/should I change? Once you understand the answers you are at least halfway toward protecting your business from the unknown. (Hint: We can help you with both sides of that equation.)

To get your copy of the Managing Business Uncertainty eBook, please reach out to me at kimberly@finopsadvisory.com. And be prepared for anything.