Ajoy Vakil

Business Development

I remember the Dennis The Menace comics when I think of the lockdown. He was asked to sit on a chair facing the wall. No communication with anyone. Isolation of sorts. A time to reflect over his mistake. The current scenario we are facing is similar, in that it is giving us time to reflect on our business. What is going right and what can be corrected? It is giving us time to reflect on our business relationships. And most of all, it is pointedly asking us to look at the benefits of the relationship versus the opportunity cost of the relationship. By cost, I am not just referring to money but also intangibles like time, effort etc. There are high chances that you might realize that some business relationships aren't really fruitful. Now is the time to decide whether we need to continue feeding them, or maybe just quietly cut off. After all, there are some relationships that look like one-way streets – we don’t get anything in return during the hiatus, but we have to continue paying them. It could be a consultant on a retainer basis or a contracted vendor. The idea is to negotiate early on, and not catch them by surprise later. I have come across organizations that have tried negotiating with their vendors after the event! This is the one that is going to be thoroughly scrutinized. Is this relationship worth keeping? Or should we be negotiating better terms? The point I am making is that the value of each relationship is going to be measured with great care. A one-month hiatus is going to make us actually think very hard about things we have taken for granted, for years. My guess is we are going to examine business relationships the most. We will also look at outsourcing some services. It makes sense to pay per use rather than retain resources that are occasionally used. Whatever we do - let us make it a win-win.