Tag: business

15 Tips To Keep A Growing Business Lean And Save Money

As your business grows, you’ll likely have more capital in rotation. As you bring in more money, you will also need to spend more to continue growing. 

However, it’s important to ensure that you’re not spending in excess and are still saving money where you can. Otherwise, you may find yourself in the red and facing some exceptionally difficult financial decisions.

Below, 15 members of Forbes Coaches Council share their best advice for business owners looking to keep their operations lean and save money.

1. Observe, Plan And Earn Before You Spend

Understand, observe and become fully aware of your industry and the needs of your business. Learning to optimize your costs takes time, errors, small tests and planning based on the data you collect every day. Ask yourself what you can change or improve in your current cost structure. – Michelle de Matheu, The Mind, Body & Soul Stylist

2. Say ‘No’ More Than You Say ‘Yes’

In a growing company, it is easy to say “yes” to a new product or service, to a client that does not fit your ideal client profile or to a new business category or opportunity. If you want to stay lean, say “no” to anything that is not part of your core. Focus is powerful and leads to extraordinary results. – Chuck Gulledge, Chuck Gulledge Advisors

3. Use A Variable Staffing Model

Staff your business for the valleys and supplement with contractors for the peaks. Too often startups take their funding or early revenue and hire staff too quickly. It’s smart to use a variable staffing model to cover services effectively and find that quality mix of people on staff, on contract or

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World Bank Approves $12B to Finance Virus Vaccines, Care | Business News

The World Bank has approved $12 billion in financing to help developing countries buy and distribute coronavirus vaccines, tests, and treatments, aiming to support the vaccination of up to 1 billion people.

The $12 billion “envelop” is part of a wider World Bank Group package of up to $160 billion to help developing countries fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank said in a statement late Tuesday.

The World Bank said its COVID-19 emergency response programs are already reaching 111 countries.

Citizens in developing countries also need access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, it said.

“We are extending and expanding our fast-track approach to address the COVID emergency so that developing countries have fair and equal access to vaccines,” said the bank’s president, David Malpass, said in the statement.

“Access to safe and effective vaccines and strengthened delivery systems is key to alter the course of the pandemic and help countries experiencing catastrophic economic and fiscal impacts move toward a resilient recovery,” he said.

The International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank is investing in vaccine manufacturers through a $4 billion Global Health Platform, the statement said.

Development and deployment of vaccines is crucial to helping stem outbreaks of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1 million people and sickened more than 38 million, while devastating economies and leaving many millions jobless.

The World Bank said it will draw on expertise and experience from its involvement in many large-scale immunization programs and other public health efforts.

The funding is meant to also help countries access tests and treatments and to support management of supply chains and other logistics for vaccinations in developing countries, the bank said.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Disney Is Restructuring Its Business Around Streaming

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Alexander Kirch/Dreamstime

Walt

Disney

announced on Monday that it’s restructuring its media and entertainment segments to place a greater emphasis on its growing streaming business. The company is in the midst of a transformation from a television and movie theater-driven distribution model to a direct-to-consumer business that would rival

Netflix.

Disney stock (ticker: DIS) was up 5.5% in after-hours trading on Monday.

Disney is creating a new unit that will be focused on commercialization and distribution of its movies, TV shows, and sports content: the Media and Entertainment Distribution group. Meanwhile the company’s studios will continue to churn out content, without a bias toward any one form of distribution.

Essentially, rather than making TV content, movie theater content, and streaming service content, Disney’s creators will just make shows and films, with a separate team deciding how to monetize them. The new distribution group will be led by Kareem Daniel, a 14-year Disney veteran who most recently served as head of games and publishing in the company’s consumer products business.

Disney will have three distinct content-production groups. First is studios, which includes Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, and will make movies and series for theaters and streaming. Second is general entertainment, composed of ABC, Disney Channels, FX, National Geographic, and others. Its focus will be on content for Disney’s streaming services like Disney+ and Hulu and its cable networks. Last will be sports, responsible for content for broadcast on ABC and ESPN and for streaming on ESPN+.

It will be up to Daniel and the distribution group to determine which path to consumers is best for each piece of content. That could mean skipping a theatrical debut for a film and bringing it directly to Disney+. Or it could mean an advertising and affiliate fee-supported run

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Bombardier: Corporate Jet Business Is Unlikely To Drive Growth (OTCMKTS:BDRAF)

Bombardier (OTCQX:BDRAF)(OTCQX:BDRBF)(OTC:BOMBF) continues to be in a fragile state. While the company will be able to deleverage its balance sheet by selling its rail transportation unit to Alstom for $8.4 billion next year and become solely a corporate jet manufacturer, we believe that its future still looks bleak. As the founding family continues to have the majority of the voting power in the company, there’s no guarantee that it will not fail to create value this time, considering that, under its leadership, Bombardier suffered immense losses by developing and later selling at a loss its own civil aviation project to Airbus (OTCPK:EADSF). In addition, by operating in a small and saturated business jet market, it will be hard for Bombardier to drive growth in the following years. For that reason, we continue to believe that there’s no value left in Bombardier stock and the opportunity cost of holding its shares is too high even at the current price.

Weak Growth Prospects Ahead

Bombardier’s stock declined by more than 20% since we published our latest article on the company in July, and there’s every reason that its share price will either decline even more in the following months or it will be trading at the current levels for a while. The reality is that Bombardier was struggling to create value for years, and it was able to survive for so long, mostly thanks to the help of the government of Quebec, which supported the business through various financial instruments and programs. After spending more than $6 billion on its commercial aviation project, the company sold its stake in the project to Airbus earlier this year for less than $600 million and was left with an overleveraged balance sheet. As a result, Bombardier had no other choice but to divest its interest

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PS Business Parks: Small Business America May Still Be In Danger (NYSE:PSB)

Investment Thesis

High unemployment rates and financial challenges among small businesses are two big problems that the markets are ignoring. Such problems may have negative impacts on the economy as a whole as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make the majority of all businesses in America. PS Business Parks (PSB), which have a large tenant base of SMEs, is at risk as small business America struggles to recover. While PSB is an excellent company with desirable qualities, prices do not offer an adequate margin of safety. I rate shares a Hold.

The Elephant In The Room

Back in March, analysts and reporters were having a debate on which letter of the alphabet would illustrate recovery in the next few months or years: J, L, U, V, W, K? Economically speaking, we’re seeing more of an alphabetti spaghetti. E-commerce is having a J-recovery as people are smashing the “Buy now with 1-Click” button in Amazon (AMZN) than ever before. Airlines are having an L-shaped recovery with passenger traffic slowly increasing week-by-week. The entertainment and tourism industry is still in limbo and recovery should look like a U-shape once the vaccine arrives. Restaurants, on the other hand, may face the threat of a double-dip, W-shaped recovery if another lockdown were to happen. In short, we’re seeing disproportionate recovery across all sectors. All this is happening while the stock market is rallying to new all-time highs as if the pandemic did not really happen. So, equity market-wise, we’re looking at a V-shaped recovery… for now.

What is concerning is that the markets are ignoring the elephant in the room: sky-high unemployment rate. Yes, the number is improving from its high of 14.7% in April. However, weekly initial jobless claims have remained at about 800,000 for nearly two months, showing a significant deceleration in

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