SMEs are facing heavy challenges as markets continue to shift in the post-Covid era, but there are still opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs to build long-lasting resilience into their businesses.

According to senior product gurus at business management platform MYOB, Bruno Baptistella and Alistair Rennie (who respectively have assisted thousands of small businesses to refine their operations and weather such challenges), government support and pent-up demand drove exceptional growth following the pandemic. This gave rise to an increase in the costs of servicing that demand – which SME business owners have since struggled to maintain.

“Companies that are resilient come out stronger in the end,” says Baptistella. “When you have high demand, you may turn a blind eye to the costs while you keep up with the pace, in order to move that volume. But when the demand drops, you might start to wonder why you’re spending all this money on all these small points, and what can be improved.

“Keeping lean and being cautious in your spending, or just being smarter about how to produce more is crucial, and that’s what savvy business owners are going to see as they find great opportunities to thrive.”

With the pace of GDP growth now slowing down and the highest inflation rate in almost 30 years, cost of living is under pressure; at the same time, consumer confidence is low despite wage growth being strong. As this all creates a marked uncertainty for small business owners, SMEs should be taking it as a signal to take stock and re-evaluate their costs, lines, and customers.

“The competition has already been fundamentally changed by e-commerce,” says Rennie. “So we’re not just comparing things on price, we’re comparing other factors like speed of delivery and stock availability – so of course there are now all these ways to create that value. In these times, where you’re not chasing demand, you have the opportunity to focus on delivering that better service. But the only way you can do that is if you’re managing costs elsewhere in the business.”

Effective software management tools and automation of business processes have the added advantage of clearing some of the stresses that are inevitably amplified during periods of economic struggle. 

“You’ve got to go lean just to stop yourself from losing sleep,” says Baptistella. “You’ve got to know where you spend your money, how you spend your money, and how you can maximise the peak so that you can navigate that low tide as well. That’s where the right tooling helps, to give you visibility so you can get the mental space you need without stressing over doing things manually, and so that you can focus on the more important things. And sometimes those tools can provide additional insights, uncovering hidden issues you can then go on to fix.”

“Of course, it’s tough to take on a new tool, right?” adds Rennie. “It’s not that you just flick a switch and it happens – you have to go and learn how to use that tool, which requires an investment of time. I think that on the surface, when you’re fighting for survival or even just to stand still, it can be hard to take a step back and objectively make that decision – even if you know that if you invest that time now, that is what’s going to save you down the line.”

Baptistella and Rennie’s work with MYOB allows them to offer SME owners a comprehensive and flexible platform that can cater to the unique needs of any business, regardless of their industry. The platform covers six key workflows, including customers, supply chain, project management, employees, finance, and accounting and tax. By understanding the specific needs of the business, MYOB can help owners manage inventory, invoicing, stock, suppliers, time billing, HR, GST, and more in one platform, making it an efficient and cost-effective solution.

“I think the relevance of what we do increases during times of macroeconomic challenge,” says Rennie, “because this is when the importance of those tools in helping you manage your business closely really makes a difference. During times of instability, when people are struggling to manage the uncertainty, that’s one reason why they come to MYOB.”

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