Mastering management: managing in a downturn When you have a real lemon on your hands, like the present economic downturn, you should think lemonade. This bitter and difficult financial crisis provides an opportunity to rethink an entire business and, more specifically, its supply chain.
This is a good time not only to look at initiatives to improve the company cash flow in the near term but also to think about long-term issues such as being in markets with zero growth. In the short term, there is a need to lower operating costs, for instance by outsourcing supply chain functions with demonstrable savings or by shedding projects whose incremental benefits cannot justify incremental costs in the near term.
