As important as small businesses are to their communities, they are also uniquely vulnerable to external events. Global crises, market movements, and technological changes are potential existential challenges that small businesses must face head on and with great courage by relying on informed and calculated business decisions. There are plenty of sound strategies that will not only help your business adapt to a changing world but will also help it thrive and even lead its niche. Let’s explore some of the most important things you should be doing to ensure your business’s resilience and longevity:
1) Choose the Right Business Banking Partner
While there are merits to going with a large mainstream bank, these institutions usually focus on the needs of large organizations, which are often quite different from those of smaller businesses. If you own a startup or an SME (small-to-medium enterprise), you’re going to be better off choosing a bank or financial technology provider that offers business solutions focused on small business banking. Having a bank that understands your small business’s needs will give you access to appropriate financing options as well as better interest rates on your savings.
In the Philippines, the fintech company Maya has emerged as a leader in SME business banking, thanks to its carefully designed services for small businesses. When it comes to business banking, Philippines’ startups and SMEs have come to depend on Maya Business Deposit as a high-interest business savings solution, and on Maya Flexi Loan for no-collateral credit and instant liquidity. In addition to technology-driven small business banking online, Maya Business clients can also enjoy online and offline payment solutions that are specifically intended for growing small businesses.
2) Cultivate Strong Social Support
Small businesses that are seen as pillars of their community are far more likely to receive support and patronage during difficult times. To receive meaningful community support, your business needs to offer a great overall customer experience and demonstrate authenticity in its relationships with customers and suppliers. Focusing on these key areas can help build strong emotional bonds between your business and the various parties it interacts with, creating enduring support that may serve to sustain your operations.
3) Prop Up Your Liquidity
Having enough liquidity may help you tackle unexpected financial challenges. While there’s no one-size-fits-all figure for the amount of cash you need on hand, it’s a good idea to aim for enough reserves to cover 3 to 6 months of operations. In any case, keeping enough cash in the bank will give you breathing room and the liquidity you need to manage difficult emergencies, and it should allow you to avoid debts.
Accumulating healthy reserves may be difficult at the start, but it’s easy when you use an online business banking product like Maya Business Deposit. Aside from effortlessly integrating with numerous Maya Business payment solutions, it also offers a 2.5% per annum interest rate, making it the perfect savings product for building your small business’s cash reserves.
4) Watch Your Gross Profit Margins
A drop in gross profits can happen for several reasons, including increased production costs, production waste, reduced profitability, and delinquent customer payments, just to name a few. To ensure that your business has time to adapt, you want to keep a close watch on the factors that directly impact your profitability. Choose around three key performance indicators that are relevant to your business model and monitor them monthly to give yourself early warning of potential downturns.
5) Optimize Your Payments
Getting your cash reserves and profit margins up will be much easier with optimized payment processes. Adopting modern payment solutions like Maya Checkout, Payment Links, Maya Invoice Payments, Maya Terminal, Maya Terminal Lite, and Maya QR will allow your customers to pay through popular payment cards, digital wallets, QR codes, and other emerging methods, smoothening out the payment process and earning you repeat business.
6) Improve Collections
Focusing on your accounts receivables will help you bump up your liquidity, improving your business’s resilience. To prevent delinquencies from eating into your earnings, develop a cohesive collections strategy for handling overdue payments. Define a series of escalating actions, including reminders, follow-up calls, and, if necessary, third-party collections agencies. Having a plan in place and making sure your clients understand it can help you recover outstanding payments efficiently, ensuring your business’s continued operation.
7) Periodically Canvass for Suppliers
Just like your business, your suppliers can also be affected by external changes in the market and in the technological landscape. To ensure the uninterrupted operation of your production lines, it's crucial to be prepared with alternative supplier options. While you should do what you can to maintain good relationships with your current suppliers, especially if they’re part of your local community, it’s important to have options on the table, should you need them.
Safeguard Your Business's Stability with Maya Business Banking
Through our Maya Business Deposit and Maya Flexi Loan products, Maya Business is redefining business banking online. Our small business solutions are the clear choice for financially empowering your startup or SME. Create a Maya Business Manager account today to improve your small business’s financial resilience and ensure years of steady growth.
Successfully setting up your Maya Business Manager account lets you enjoy exclusive deals like the Maya 1-2-3 Grow product growth bundle. This bundle gives you a 1% MDR discount for all QR Ph transactions, boosting your savings and effortlessly improving your business’s financial resilience. This will let you save PHP 14,600 in fees for every PHP 1M in QR Ph sales. By activating this bundle, you can also assign a Maya Business Deposit account for settlements. You’ll earn a 2.5% p.a. interest on your deposit account, which translates to PHP 25,000 in interest per year on a PHP 1 million deposit. That’s 20 to 25 times more than what other banks offer! Joining Maya 1-2-3 Grow also qualifies you for a no-collateral Maya Flexi Loan offer of up to PHP 2 million, in just 3 months, giving you more funding options and financial breathing room. Sign up for a Maya Business Manager account today to enjoy our world-class business banking solutions, as well as all-in-one business growth bundles like Maya 1-2-3 Grow.
