Natural Disasters and the Commandment of Control: How Has CV Affected Your Biz?

[JWM]

The current international climate due to Coronavirus had me thinking about the commandment of control. While @MJ DeMarco wasn’t referring to natural disasters (I use natural disaster as that’s how it’s defined in terms of making business decisions here in Australia) when talking about the commandment it got me thinking about the impact this situation is having on business.

How this situation has impacted your business or project? Have you ever considered analysing or putting a plan in place we’re a natural disaster to occur? Will you be able to ride this whole thing out?

Personally, I have had to stand down my work force, not fire them but send them home essentially until the lock downs have relaxed. I’m fortunate enough to be able to ride this out business wise, but it’s hard having to be forced to send my employees home without pay with all this uncertainty. But having all the work dry up in a matter of days has forced my hand.

Are there any other stories out there?

 

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[TreyAllDay]

Yah - I mean I feel a lot more in control than if I had a job right now. A lot of different variables at play that I can work with rather than just assuming I'll have to take a pay cut and go on EI.

I doubt we're going to grow the same rate we thought but I have a good 40k saved up +, may have to lay off programmers and step in myself.

 

[JWM]

Yah - I mean I feel a lot more in control than if I had a job right now. A lot of different variables at play that I can work with rather than just assuming I'll have to take a pay cut and go on EI.

I doubt we're going to grow the same rate we thought but I have a good 40k saved up +, may have to lay off programmers and step in myself.

Yes, that is one good point, I feel a lot more in control than working for someone else too.

What industry do you focus on in terms of programming?

 

[Rabby]

I have a tendency to overprotect, so I have disaster plans and continuity plans in place before almost anything else in a business. I don't think the current disaster will cause us much direct harm.

I have seen a few things. A state vendor closed their testing facilities, and that affects my school's students. It could slow down registrations, but then again, most of our classes are online, so that could be offset if people ditch face to face classes in favor of online ones. In some cases we're extending the time we allow for online class access for people who are affected; that has some cost. We had to cancel a face to face prep class, and that class had a teacher, so we made up a new job for him to do online to replace it. None of this really hurts us though, at least not so far as I can tell right now.

I just hired a full time developer in the second business, and have no plans or even see the likelihood of having to scale that down. I actually see this as a good time to invest in your own business, you own control. I understand that in some businesses, people will get fewer orders. And you just have to do what you have to do. To a certain extent, I may have lucked out by focusing on the things I've focused on... I can think of much worse businesses to be in, in this particular situation.

But I also think that if you keep on trucking through this, you're showing the market that you can thrive under adverse conditions. That's a very powerful thing, and customers, especially in b2b, can sense it.

So I see this disaster as a bad thing overall, obviously. But it also presents opportunities to show what we're made of. You asked about the commandment of control. Well, you can't control nature; at least not all of it. But there are a lot of things you can control, and if you focus on those, you can roll right through this.

 

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[JWM]

I have a tendency to overprotect, so I have disaster plans and continuity plans in place before almost anything else in a business. I don't think the current disaster will cause us much direct harm.

I have seen a few things. A state vendor closed their testing facilities, and that affects my school's students. It could slow down registrations, but then again, most of our classes are online, so that could be offset if people ditch face to face classes in favor of online ones. In some cases we're extending the time we allow for online class access for people who are affected; that has some cost. We had to cancel a face to face prep class, and that class had a teacher, so we made up a new job for him to do online to replace it. None of this really hurts us though, at least not so far as I can tell right now.

I just hired a full time developer in the second business, and have no plans or even see the likelihood of having to scale that down. I actually see this as a good time to invest in your own business, you own control. I understand that in some businesses, people will get fewer orders. And you just have to do what you have to do. To a certain extent, I may have lucked out by focusing on the things I've focused on... I can think of much worse businesses to be in, in this particular situation.

But I also think that if you keep on trucking through this, you're showing the market that you can thrive under adverse conditions. That's a very powerful thing, and customers, especially in b2b, can sense it.

So I see this disaster as a bad thing overall, obviously. But it also presents opportunities to show what we're made of. You asked about the commandment of control. Well, you can't control nature; at least not all of it. But there are a lot of things you can control, and if you focus on those, you can roll right through this.

Thanks for your insight. You made a few good points there particularly about using the time to invest in the business. Where I am in Australia, as of today all non-essential businesses must close indefinitely, my business falls into this category. We have been able to eliminate almost all overheads while in shut down mode and we are able to finally sit down and catch up on all the tasks we have been needing to do, more of the "working on the business" things.