Rupert Hart
Part I: Adversity Stimulates Improvement 1 An Ocean of Opportunity The past is another country 1 1; A time of competitive opportunity 12; Be pro-active 13 2 Leadership Is the Key Without a vision, the people perish 16; Communicate! Communicate! Commununicate! 17; AU for one, and one for all 18 3 Learning From the Past The effects of recession 19; What exactly is a reces- sion? 20; Hard-to-spot turning points 2 1; Poor statistics 21; Politics affects economics 22; The experts are often mistaken 22; Interest rates rise 23; Why so great an effect on your company? 24; After-effects linger 25 Part II: Costs, Flexibility and Cash 4 Cut Costs Strategically Key principles 31; Information is the key 32; Setting targets 39; Making the cuts 45; Investing for the future 49 5 Improving Flexibility Flexibility is the key 53; Making costs as variable as possible 53;Increasing flexibility through people 57 6 Improving Cash Flow Saving cash for other battles 69; Putting out the fire 69; Factoring 69; Leaseback 70; Keeping tabs on the inven- tory 70; just-in-time 71; Paying later 72; The customer pays first 72; Controlling debtor risk 73; Leasing 73 Part III: Competitive Marketing 7 Making the Most of Existing Customers Like filling a bath with the plug out 77; Go where the money is 77; The three Rs 81; Repeat business 81; Recurring revenue 85; Referrals 88; Partnership 89 8 Winning Revenue From New Customers Relationships unfreeze 101; Find new customers 102; Reach more customers more cost effectively 113; New products, new ideas 119 9 Avoid the Slide into Price Cuts Significant bottom line impact 125; Anybody can sell on price 126; The whole product 126; Perception is real- ity 129; Raise prices 132 10 Dropping Prices Disguising price falls 137; Dropping prices openly 138; Variable pricing 140; The three types of pricing 142 Part IV: Buying Undervalued Companies 11 Many Cheap Companies Plain incompetence 151; Getting forecasts wrong 151; Overexpansion 152; Bad management made more obvious 152; Inability to change 154; The leader can obstruct 154;The greater fooltheory 155;Basing growth on continuing rise in asset values 155;The mystique of the chief executive officer 156;The herd instinct 157;Out of debt,outofdangcr 157;Paying too much 158;Debt is cheaper than equity under normal conditions 158; Low threshold of pain 159; Mergers have high failure rates 161; Feeding frenzy 163; Spinning off diversifica- tions which didn't work 163; Disintegration 165; Over- capacity 165; Buying abroad 165; Exploiting tax losses 166 12 Making the Most of the Buying Opportunity Undervalued companies 169; Realizing the value of an acquisition 172; Managing the acquisition process suc- cessfully 175; Conclusion 178 References Further Reading Index