Vantage Performance co-pens Building a Resilient Business guide

As business insolvencies continue to rise, Australian businesses need to improve their capability to survive ongoing tough business conditions – with this in mind Vantage Performance and CreditorWatch have joined forces to create a new guide for building resilient businesses.

Data from ASIC out this week reveals that the number of companies that have entered external administration has grown strongly over the past year, with administrations notably high in the construction and manufacturing sectors.

Commenting on the development, Vantage Performance CEO Michael Fingland said: “With cost-of-living hurting businesses across all sectors, we’re seeing a lot of distress in multiple industries and of all sizes, with more tough times to come.”

At the same time, research from CreditorWatch shows the average value of B2B invoices to be at record lows. “We are also seeing trade payment defaults trend upward, with a 55% year-on-year increase,” CreditorWatch CEO Patrick Coghlan said.

To help leaders enhance the resilience of their business, the two companies have joined minds to launch their ‘Guide to Building a Resilient Business’. “The goal is for businesses to put resiliency plans in place that will help reduce Australia’s insolvency numbers,” Fingland said.

The guide shares insights Vantage Performance has learned from working to turnaround and strengthen hundreds of Australian businesses over the past two decades. Vantage Performance ranks as one of Australia’s leading restructuring consulting firms.

The guide is a summarised version of the firm’s Fast-Track program, which outlines 8 pillars and 50 critical management tools, habits, systems and processes that all long-term highly successful businesses have in common. It covers creating a strategy, finding purpose, habits for success, effective sales, putting in place the right business intelligence, working capital management, leadership and culture and finally governance and accountability.

“It’s not brain surgery, but in the day-to-day busy-ness of growing and surviving in business, it takes discipline to continuously improve,” Fingland said. “Even if businesses focus on one of the eight actions at a time, rather than taking them all on, they are taking a step in the right direction towards overall performance and sustainability.”

Coghlan said: “Our guide gives Australian business owners and leaders valuable insight into how to strengthen their business and take the proactive measures now to weather the storm and be in a much stronger position when conditions eventually improve.”