The Creation of a New Order of Things

For most people running a small business, the current and future situation looks challenging. As the government steps forward with packages of support, what are the long term opportunities for small and medium enterprises, how should we think in terms of the support offered?

Similarly, in 2008 the government stepped in to assist the economy by propping up the financial institutions with a series of loans and initiatives designed to return confidence to the global financial system. Propping up the global financial system in this way indirectly left many small business owners and self-employed people having to reinvent themselves. Working capital and long term commitments were assessed under the new geopolitical frameworks creating difficulty for growth in the small and medium enterprises. 

Much has been learned since that time, and much has changed – these frameworks have evolved to keep the global economy stable.  Balance sheets are now more and more blended with various types of finance, in part due to deregulation and structural innovation. 

This innovation has created more and more competition from internet-based banking, new systems of money transfer, new financial products, crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, and financial instruments that convert from debt to equity according to the stresses created by economic uncertainty. 

For the present, leaders of organizations that are currently looking at timelines associated with current cash flows have to take advantage of the loans and advances from the Government, whether to support payroll of employees, deferment of taxes or rescue funds as working capital. 

If we are to consider an economy that will have to deal with more and more uncertainty and less and less insurable risk from issues arising from climate change and population growth, it’s the perfect time for this package of support to have new flexibility allowing SMEs to build quickly and be part of an integrated solution. 

In doing so, allowing the package of government loans and support to be the beginning of new financial instruments that change according to the economic uncertainty that small and medium-sized enterprises can build into a long-term financial buffer – strengthening their future and the global economy from the ground up.