Malditah Musings

bacolod real estate development corporation

We are in turbulent times.

We are caught in the midst of global financial meltdown, affecting the country, companies, businesses, industries and, more all, people.

Among countries, the United States, the largest economy in the world, is shrinking, with the affected countries in Europe, Asia, and American continent.

In the business world, countless corporations and businesses in some countries making diverse products and services, from cars cellular phones, from banks to financial services, from appliances in restaurants and department stores, just to name a few, have suffered serious losses during others closed shop. The business was once thought to be very stable, powerful, and useful.

Even corporate giant and admired once considered Institutions and leaders in the industry is not spared.

Who would ever think that the venerable General Motors Corporation (gm), which for many decades is the world's largest industrial corporation currently employing 244 000 people with subsidiaries and plants in 34 countries and sells cars in some 140 countries, now is heading to bankruptcy?

Given the current global recession, millions of people in the Asia, Europe and the Americas have suddenly found themselves out of work and has joined the ranks of the unemployed. Many inside, dismayed, demoralized.

So, what should we do to survive in these turbulent times, the times change and the rapidly changing environment?

History will tell us that in the 1990s, there was also a setback, and people have survived. For safety survival and growth is only a question of how we manage ourselves, our families, our businesses, our priorities, relationships and networks, at funds. And how we do it?

Peter F. Drucker, considered to be the most influential management thinker ever, is a matter of advice in his book titled "Managing in turbulent Times" for the people in the 1990s and which is still very relevant to us today.

To fuss again, says Drucker, the first task of management, which is also our first task is to ensure our capacity for survival, to ensure our structural strength and versatility, our ability to survive a blow, to adapt to sudden changes and to help us for new opportunities in the midst of change this.

Surviving these turbulent times call for new challenges, new ideas, innovations, sometimes making sacrifices, and trade offs, and new ways of management. It means making strategic assessments to determine our internal strengths and weaknesses – as our knowledge, skills, attitudes, funds, assets, competencies, and using energy to reduce our weaknesses. Our weaknesses could be lack of positive attitudes, limited skills in other fields, debt, static demand for our products, high value operations, and some niche markets.

To manage efficient at a time like this, no other alternative but to maximize our competitive advantages, our strengths and resources to cope with threats our external environment (eg recession, lack of supply and demand, lack of sources of credit) to take advantage of opportunities. The opportunity could be the existence training for new skills, new customer for a new business, going into new fields of internet marketing and making money online, or even relocating to a different city where the cost of living and operation are lower and where the demand for our products or services is higher.

But it is up to us as managers, business owners and entrepreneurs to ensure that we use the tools of management – planning, organizing, leading and management, to survive the recession and financial meltdown. In this way, when the recovery comes, we are still around to make our business grow, prosper, and useful once again.

And we survive if we know how to manage in turbulent times.

Eli A. Gatanela is a practising lawyer, management consultant and licensed real estate broker based in bacolod city, Philippines. Mr. Gatanela has been involved in business and management consulting for the past twenty years, and in the private practice of law, specializing in commercial law for the last 8 years. He was formerly professor of Economics and Business Management and holds Economics, MBA and Law digress from the University of St. La Salle, one of the leading universities in the Philippines belonging to the De La Salle Brothers of the Christian Schools worldwide. Mr. Gatanela heads his law and consulting firm Gatanela & Associates based in Bacolod City, Philippines. His website is: http://businessphereconsulting.com

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