Crisis in the enterprise: an internal matter

With so many crisis-reaching enterprises of various branches of business, large and small, in Brazil and other countries - including the first world, it is to imagine why this happens. It is the same as asking why people get sick. Say it is because there are bacteria that will contaminate a simplistic definition. The right will say that their weakened bodies are unable to create defenses and can not react to the presence of these germs. Then follow the disease. Similarly, we can say that companies are sick because their bodies - their bodies function - not react to internal and external factors that affect. This is where businesses get sick, that is, into crisis. Understand, so that crises arise and spread within the company.

Consider that companies, as corporations are founded, organized and operated by individuals. The legal persons do not exist without the individuals, that give them life and make them work. Even when a lawsuit comes to the Supreme Court, though moved by some legal, are individuals that understand. Within organizations, whether public or private, the individuals all take their moral qualities, their concepts, their weaknesses, faults and virtues. Companies achieve a performance that is the performance of individuals, and can not be separated, because the functions and systems are impersonal, the exercise of these functions is characterized by personal characteristics. Because these characteristics vary, there is a pattern that gives uniformity to the performance of companies.

The companies operate from top to bottom. The idea of a company supposedly democratic, that operates by consensus, is not of pure illusion and certainly will continue so long. The responsibility for good or bad performance is always the man from above, which has the supervision of others. When sales are bad, the vendors will dismiss a reckless measure. If things are standardized, so good. Otherwise, soon the supervisor of sales you can follow the same path, then the sales manager, director and soon perhaps the vice president of sales, this was before the company has gone into bankruptcy.

There can be a parallel structure of power, but when the company is full of relatives and members, many of them incompetent, it is difficult to avoid the chaos. The origin of the crisis also arouses interest. Sometimes it is a crisis congenita: born with the company. Should not enter into a business blindly, without first carrying out a market study. We must consider the location of the market, characteristics and consumer preferences, pricing, competition, deadlines, risks involved and a variety of information to enable the entrepreneur to know the extent of competitive forces with which they face. Often a company is founded and launches it on the market without any previous study, just relying on eyes of the owner. A feasibility study will be a useful tool in determining the directions below: founding the company, or change the project to another business that is really viable.

The motivation of the staff must also be examined. It is not uncommon to find entrepreneurs who are employed as machines that can be discarded at any time. There is a form of encouragement, anything that leads to wear the shirt of the company. Sometimes not even wear half of the company, much less wear the shirt. Employees do not feel inclined to fight for good results. Thus, it is difficult to produce something positive.

The vision of the entrepreneur is often a hidden source of problems. Often the problems are seen, but in other places. That is what you might call a business congenital myopia, the first sign of crisis, resigned itself to wipe the table plan, when perhaps the solution would increase sales. Calls to the managers to select those who enter the court. Select them all and all, except themselves. Do not want to put your own neck on the guillotine, but the other place. Certainly they are perfect ...

Is difficult if the owner is a crisis. Might seem a rare occurrence, but not both. In the Recife city I known a medium-sized company, manufacturer of presses, scales, shear cutters, and others. Even had provided much of a battery of machines for the automotive industry that has developed in Minas Gerais in the early 70th Received incentives of Sudene, but lived in a deep crisis. To resolve the situation, the first to be removed should be ... the president himself. When some portion of funds was released by Sudene, he was to the bank and closed the account. Through accounting tricks, could hide the embezzlement. Its assets, including in Italy, grew increasingly. There was no surprise when the Federal Revenue undertook a rigorous review and he, along with the meter, was unable to remove the reef without judicial authorization. In the early 80s the company closed its doors. Something like what happened to some other bank in Bahia and in Minas Gerais. Thus, there is no company that is a crisis, not even a bank.

The accounts, which is the brain of the company, reflects a dynamic reality. Often the signs of warning are issued, but are not realized in time to avoid the disaster. The Lake Airways, for several years, was one of the most active companies in commercial aviation in the United States. Plunged into many difficulties, finished closing the doors. However, an analysis of Statement of Sources and Applications of Funds in the last five years, show that the red light was lit and was not taken into account: the disaster could have been avoided.

In this tangle of problems, often hidden, try to at every moment a light at the end of the tunnel. This light may be lit by a diagnosis. The decision to perform a diagnosis always follows the existence of problems. The company faced difficulties is obviously one of the priority objectives of a diagnosis. Thus, the diagnosis is an irreplaceable tool to put in evidence any disharmony between the structures of the enterprise or between business and socio-economic reality in which its action unfolds. The diagnosis is not a passenger or fashions is something new. It is the only instrument that provides an overview and dynamics of the company, enabling the entrepreneur to obtain an X-ray clear, simple and accurate of all of your business. Through this diagnosis will find the answers to the questions, always the same, we do almost every day. What could have made the company? What can you do? What do you do? What should we do? I really want to act? The climate of the company admit that intervention? The biggest opposition to a diagnosis is always among those who fear losing privileges. However, what is at stake is the maintenance of privilege: the continuity of the company. The owner decide what you want to do: restore the company or ceases to be destroyed by the crisis.