Thought leadership

Adapting to the new normal

As the impact of Covid 19 continues to evolve and priorities have changed so have ours. Firstly, to shielding our family and friends from exposure, secondly, to supporting our businesses and those we impact.

As many adjust to working and being at home as one and the same, ensuring basic needs are met with home delivery and shopping schedules in place, the same is being applied to business.

The priority across the business community is to preserve as much infrastructure as possible so the recovery can be swift, but also looking to ways we can adapt and take advantage of new opportunities.

We saw on Friday the launch of the Job Retention Scheme, deferral of VAT, income tax and business rates holidays. The Government is making huge and largely unprecedented steps to help business meet many of their costs. Initiatives are being announced at breakneck speed. It’s a problem shared which calls for a collective effort.

At the heart of this is trying to create a new normal; in particular, maintaining contact to bring a sense of community into remote working. Where we can, we will be inviting you to some our events,  but we would love to be part of anything that you organise.

We want to collectively share our business experience and knowledge so that as many people as possible can work together to get through this, but also have a positive impact in adapting to a changed way of working.

Here’s a few things we’ve done and are doing:

• Like many we’ve set up an Action Group that is looking at all the various initiatives and options for financial support
• We will circulate not just what we know, but also the practical tips and experiences we see over the coming weeks
• We plan to set up a series of “real coffee in a virtual world” events. These might cover individual topics, or just share experiences. We are using Microsoft Teams- so you can sit quietly and have a coffee in the corner and listen or be one of the four on screen
• We’ve seen businesses that were seeking investment write and re-write plans over recent weeks. We are very happy to share the experiences of our portfolio as they access the various schemes with any other business.

Clearly everyone is now mindful of the government health advice; if they are right and can in some way flatten demand on the healthcare system that will mean we can get back to crossing the street and shaking the hands of our friends rather than having to pass on the other side.

Many of our portfolio businesses have already made remarkable strides in adapting to the challenges; the resilience and innovation is admirable. We are supporting them to meet these challenges and identify opportunities.

We know the current new way of working is different, but I hope you find some of the information we will be sharing useful and if you want to join any of our sessions as they come on stream please do – we find that the children often lose interest in interrupting after a few minutes.

Look out for our first piece by Andy Thomas – “8 things to consider before you approach your bank” – which will be available soon.

We look forward to keeping in touch on-line and sharing as much information with you as we can.

Keep safe and well,

David Hall
MD, YFM Equity Partners