Vultures

 January 27 – Had our management meeting, later than usual in the month yesterday. Blame post Christmas, snow and diary problems. Somehow things slipped.

We’re ten months into the year. The result is now pretty clear. OK, and unexciting, with continuing debt issues and minor quibbles on cost control, but nothing that could not be delegated without difficulty after discussion.

We spent the meeting really focussed on next year and where growth might come from, if at all. Government spending cuts will hit us, maybe hard. We have to be cautious in any assumptions about increases from that quarter – it’s just wholly unrealistic to think it will happen. And there are also ample signs that things still aren’t rosy elsewhere. We’re seeing a small but steady erosion in contract work, being replaced by one off call out work where people will not commit to regular payment (although call out is not in their best interests as on contract we can usually nip problems in the bud before they happen because of our electronic monitoring of our kit, but some people can’t be persuaded).  And installation fees are not growing, despite very best efforts.

So we came down to two real priorities. The first is training people. We have to be smarter and I’m annoyed there’s risk that several training budgets will be under spent this year. It’s the one thing where I hate under spending. Second, like it or not we’re on the look out for those likely to go under. I think there are some likely small candidates for this. #1 and AM have between them been given the task of surveying all we know in the sector for weak accounts. We might as well be vultures if that’s the way we need to feed.