At first glance, a recession or depression in the economy slows things down and reduces the need for products and services, resulting in a need for us all to tighten our belts. But I've been taking a second glance, and I'm seeing areas where the slowdown (whether you use the "r" word or the "d" word) in general is giving a boost in some other areas. In the summer, when things were quieter than they had been a year ago, I heard of companies selling camping equipment who were reporting a huge upturn in business ... and no doubt that resulted in them putting more business out to their business to business suppliers - elements of growth.

One of our prospects for a private course wrote to me at the start of this week, and told me that his budget has been withdrawn - that they won't be taking their Python training plans any further at the moment. But then a delegate on this week's course, who booked quite late in the day, told me how their systems have got dramatically busier in the last two months to the extent that the training up of extra staff, including himself, in Apache Tomcat has been made necessary. So even in a a business that "first logic" would lead you to consider would be quickly and badly hit - training, conferences, and hotel rooms - there are shoots of fresh growth and new business.

I wish I had a crystal ball so that I knew ahead of times which areas will be going up and which will be going down. Now is an important time for us to look ahead, to be prepared to make adjustments to keep up and running and servicing our customers - and our new customers too - as they would wish over coming months and years. The period over Christmas and the New Year is traditionally a lean one, with both business visitors to Melksham and training course customers being virtually absent from a week or so before Christmas into the New Year, and then it only picks up slowly as people get back to work and restarted with their day to day work before they start looking ahead to the future ... and I don't see this holiday season varying widely from that. Yet even there we have an opportunity - to spend a little bit of available time that we haven't had during the year in recharging our batteries, and also in preparing to meet the demands of what out 2009 customer base will need.
(written 2008-11-21 06:46:27)

 G900 - Well House Consultants - Miscellany

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