All the recession has done is highlight the vulnerability of those businesses which would have gone bust anyway, argues Robert Craven.
Here comes my tough love bit: businesses that go bust deserve to. Most of them run out of cash because their 'business model' (whatever one is!) is not sustainable. You don’t need a doctorate in business to figure that one out.
Yes, there was a change in circumstances. Yes, there was some bad luck. Yes, the toast landed butter-side down. But basically they ran out of cash. Here are the last four stories that were told to me. All very emotional and sad stories:
- The demand for hotel rooms collapsed
- The best customer went 'pop' taking you down
- The bank decided it felt too vulnerable and wanted its money back
- A bigger, better, cheaper competitor set up next door
The theme is consistently similar: "We didn't see it coming...", "no-one told us...", "we ran out of cash..."
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