Shipping has almost stopped out of China. The port of Long Beach predicts that by next week container traffic will have fallen by 38% and will continue to fall. Truckers who were working 6 days with overtime are looking at 2-3 runs a week. Freight forwarders are demanding that tariffs be paid in advance instead of within 2 weeks of arrival to the port. Vendors are telling their customers that they cannot process their orders. They can’t calculate their cost of goods which are changing every day so they have stopped ordering. Big companies like Walmart have cushion and access to the White House. Small companies have little cushion and are forming/joining peer groups on WeChat or Vistage networks to struggle/survive together. It is a day by day battle.
Going through the Covid lockdown gave us tools for adjusting quickly and finding ways to survive sudden change. Putting aside the cause of this disruption and all the associated thoughts and feelings, you must choose how to run your organizations with the best hope of survival.
Here are some questions to consider:
- Where do you want to be in 5-7 years?
- What steps today will help you still be around?
- What conversations do you need to be having with vendors and customers?
- What are other ways to satisfy demand for your product/service in the short term as we figure out the next 100 days?
- What is your plan to stay profitable?
- Do you need to cut staff or reallocate your resources?
- Is there an opportunity to pick up business or acquire competitors?
- Where is there opportunity in the chaos?
You could probably add 10 more questions to this list.
Perhaps this is an opportunity to reorganize how you think about your business as we had to do during the COVID crisis. This week push past the anger and fear as best you can and strategize for your success.
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