Recession Proofing: Take Out Costs

As revenue declines on your goods and services, so must your cost. Removing costs from the organization is a key recessionary response, although some actions, such as consolidation, need to be planned in-advance. Growing during a recession means you will need workforce; with planning, you can actually consolidate your workforce in some areas by adding skills to a portion of your workforce. A good example would be a consolidated customer operations or unification of your IT support. Additionally, consolidation of your footprint, resources, and assets will reduce costs further. More cost reductions and risk mitigation can be found by simply remixing your labor between employee vs. contractor. Strive for a internal consumption-based mind-set that will allow you to shed capex early, and shed opex when you need to. And be sure to spin-up your data analytics internally so that you have visibility to what costs you can safely remove, and the impact to the business.