Coming Out of Crisis is an Opportune Time to Re-Assess Your Business Model
Part 1 : KEY RESOURCES
Many businesses had to pivot quickly when the COVID-19 crisis disrupted US companies in March 2020 and beyond. Depending on where you are located in the country, your business may still be dramatically impacted by the quarantine and economic disruption resulting from the pandemic.
In this series, we’re going to layout different aspects of your business model that may be worth re-assessing as a result of the crisis.
Many business owners and CEOs fail to do this on a regular basis (even in good times), leaving a company stagnant and capped at a certain level of growth and innovation. A crisis can often force your hand, requiring a re-assessment to simply stay afloat. While we hope this isn’t the case for your business, it’s definitely a good time to review and rethink parts of your current business model. The idea is to look for opportunities to improve profits, innovate, pivot, evaluate your competition post-crisis, review your value proposition, and consider your key resources.
We’ll start with KEY RESOURCES for this article.
Key resources are typically defined as the assets required to serve your customers in a satisfactory manner, grow and maintain customer relationships, and earn revenue. The important question to ask when considering your Key Resources post-crisis is, “where did we fall short during the crisis and what changes need to be made to prevent that from happening in the future?”
In a typical business model plan, key resources include the following:
- Physical resources
The meaning of this term is pretty clear – it’s all resources in your company that are physical, like buildings, equipment, fleet vehicles, point-of-sale systems, and such.
- Intellectual resources
Intellectual resources include patents and trademarks, but it goes well-beyond that. Intellectual resources also include your customer database and mailing lists, strategic partnerships, and proprietary processes and knowledge.
- Human resources
Human resources is a common term in business used to define the “people” who make up the organization. But in the content of a business model, this is a particularly important component of companies in creative industries and industries where high levels of expertise are needed. Think scientists, engineers, and the like. If your business model is dependent on specific human expertise and skill, this a Key Resource that must be tended to consistently.
- Financial resources
Business lines of credit, cash, and available credit fall under financial resources. There are other financial resources relevant to large corporations, as well. We would add into the mix for small to mid-size companies, your personal relationship with a local banker. Nothing reinforced the necessity of this more than the COVID-19 crisis PPP program. Those with close relationships to their local bankers benefited more quickly than those without.
Another Key Resource that we’d add into this mix is your Professional Network. This is not typically part of traditional “business model plans”, but we’re talking about a global pandemic and the unprecedented issues faced by business owners and CEOs all over the globe. Those CEOs and Business Owners who had very well nurtured professional networks, fared better than those who did not. The reason is that they had access to non-financial resources that can have a strong financial impact … knowledge, experience, resources and connections of peers.
As you work through the exercise of re-assessing your KEY RESOURCES, start with what you know you have in that area. Then think about what you NEEDED, but didn’t have. Then consider ways to develop those Key Resources for the future.
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If you’re ready to take your business and leadership skills to the next level, and if you think your business could benefit from more insights like what’s offered in this article, let’s start a conversation. LXCouncil may be the perfect next step!
