Snow – The icy affect it can have on business!

Still in the wrath of wintry weather conditions that have hit the UK, you can only really begin to wonder what effect this unusually cold snap will have for many of the UK’s already struggling businesses.

On Tuesday 3rd February The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) estimated 20% of the UK’s working population, or 6.4 million people, did not make it to work.

Stephen Alambritis from the FSB said its estimate of £1.2bn was a cautious one and the actual cost was likely to be higher.

“There is also the knock-on effect of passing trade going down as people won’t be buying their sandwiches for lunch or picking up a coffee or newspaper,” he said.
(Taken from the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7864804.stm)

So many businesses have been affected by the heavy snow that have resulted in a variety of unforeseeable events, and the criticism of whether London or many other regions of the UK should have been more prepared will be in debate for some time.

Here in Inverness and our surrounding area we are certainly more use to the “white  stuff” although we have now been hit hard with heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions with the main A9 from Aviemore to Inverness shut this morning, along with many schools, but with the gritters and snow ploughs that the region holds out in full force we will soon be back to normal…

Interestingly, and worth thinking about, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, admitted that the capital was not equipped to deal with such an unusually heavy snow fall.

He also went on to say that it did not necessarily make sense to make a major investment in snow-ploughs if they were only used once every two decades, and to be honest I think many would agree that putting in the type of funding that would be needed to deal with the problems of the last few days is just not that economical.

For smaller businesses cash flow and finances are already tight this year so late payments and a slump in business especially for those in retail may prove to be fundamentally crippling, resulting in failure of their business as an ultimate consequence of the bad weather, unless they are quickly able to make up for lost business once the wintry weather eases.

Once it is back to business as normal aim to boost revenue by whatever means you see possible; for retailers it may be offers, for services providers you may be looking at more long term incentives.

Importantly, do not lose sight of any marketing campaigns and goals… Keep them up to speed with the intention of regaining, maintaining and where possible boosting business.

Don’t let the snow get your business down this winter…

Tags: blizzard, Boris Johnson, London, snow, snowfall, snowing, UK, winter