“I firmly believe that entrepreneurs can solve 90% of the economic and social challenges faced around the world. Fortified with my years of industry experience and insights gained by having mentored over 400 businesses – my mission is to support you to drive your business forward.”
Kapil Khanna is an Indian born entrepreneur who left his high-profile management job in India to follow his heart and joined his wife in Ireland in 2009 during the peak of the recession.
He arrived with no job and did not have any business contacts. Within the last 10 years, Kapil re-established his career and co-founded the All-Ireland Business Foundation (AIBF) – an independent national body responsible for accrediting best-in-class Irish businesses as Business All-Stars (www.businessallstars.ie).
Kapil is also the co-founder of the annual All-Ireland Business Summit that takes place in Croke Park every year. The Summit attracts over 800 business leaders with some fantastic speakers. Over the last 10 years, Kapil has served on various advisory boards and is a mentor to several private companies worldwide. He consults businesses on scaling, commercial strategy, sales, and digital business development.
Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Kapil gained well-rounded senior management experience from working with Irish consulting firms and fortune 500 companies in online advertising, financial services, and pharmaceuticals. Kapil holds an MBA- Strategy, CFPcm Charter holder and a certified marketeer. He is presently living in Leixlip, Co. Kildare with his young family.
Contact: kapil@aibf.ie
Disclaimer: "I'm not an accountant, and whatever I'm going to share with you is purely based upon my experience, since working with other businesses. What I've seen other companies are doing, and, possibly one of the options that you can do as well it's not financial advice as such for any of the people listening."
Please see the attached Cash Flow planning template:
Cashflow is essential for us and the business as well because if you run out of the cash flow, the company will start gasping for and it will not be able to sustain and survive in, you know, in the next foreseeable future. The number of things you can do to manage your cash flows in the current situation, but the most important thing is you need to dispel the fear. And the number one way to dispel concern is to bring clarity and how you bring clarity is by assessing your current situation. You know, whether you're an employee or employer in terms of where you are, where your finances are, and what you see is going to happen in the next 90 days, which is very, very critical. So we all need a 90-day action plan! In those 90 days, we need to think about the best scenario, and we need to think about the worst-case scenario. And we need to think about what may happen in a realistic scenario as well. Nobody knows what's going to happen, nor end in the next couple of weeks or months, and we all know that. So, I have put together this quick template. And in this template, what you will see is, whether you are working or in the business, the top part is your income sources, what are your incomings? So whether incomings are in terms of your wages, your interest or rental income. So, that is the first part you need to see about what are the inflows going to happen in the next 90 days. This cash flow template I put together until December 2020, so for the next few months. Now, what do you need to put here? Is what your beginning is. What's the starting cash balance? Your top part and then start putting together what's going to come in the month of May? June? July? August? September? October? November? And in December?
Please see the attached 90-Day planning template:
The second thing I wanted to share is how you can make a 90-day plan for example, no matter what challenge you have in the business, in terms of increasing revenue, reducing cost, put that on a piece of paper, this is what I need to do. Put down what is the expected outcome you would like to see within that area. For example, if you want a new project, a new job, identify the top three areas you need to cover in that part and what success or the right outcome needs to look like. For example, I would like to reduce my cost by 50%, or I would like to collect the receivables because they might be people who owe you money. I would collect receivable by 50% this month, then put down the actions you need to take to make it happen for example when to make a call, I need to give them a discount, or to provide them with a split payment option probably. So only when you go deep into each of that area and then give yourself a time or timeframe to make it happen. The most crucial point is that you need to double triple the action. Now, is not the time to take rest and respite because I think our actions and effort needs to also multifold x2, x3, x5 depending upon our capabilities. To address our priority survival, you know, which is the health survival, but at the same time, our income survival as well.
Please see the attached Gov. Business Support Packages:
There are several supports which the government have introduced. You can classify these supports into grants or loans, which you don't have to give back to the supporting bodies and are available to businesses in this time to help navigate financial cash flow and working capital challenges. So, the number one from the from loans point of view is the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, and you can apply for the loan through them. Here is a document which is a critical document, Shashank I'll share the link with you. I would encourage every single business to go through this document in detail. Put together one hour to go through and make yourself aware what is happening in the market, what is available, what you can avail immediately because remember; situation may go even worse in the next three months, four months, six months. Bank liquidity will have also compromised, which means they may not have money to lend you or to give if you don't take immediate action. So it's essential to take immediate action. I can't emphasise enough on how important it is to secure your credit line with your lenders. There is a 200 million COVID funding from the SBCI, there is a form available on SBCI where they will ask you your cash flow statement, your business plan, and once it is approved, it will go back to the primary lenders. The key features available, similar to the credit guarantee scheme available, but I'm not going to go deep into each one of the scheme because you can spend hours going through them. But I think very superficially, I want to make you aware of that now, I'm sure many businesses have already been utilising these things, but to highlight the importance of that. Microfinance is also very important, especially for the small businesses who have been refused loan application from the bank. So you can apply through Microfinance bank they also have an option to defer payment, before interest payment for a number of months, you have to produce a rejection letter from your bank to avail of that fund, it is very helpful and worth considering for the companies employing less than ten people, you can apply up to 50,000 you know, starting from 5000. There are specific funds available only to the enterprise Ireland clients, you have to see whether you are currently the EI clients or not. Here is also another important scheme which has only recently announced is the online retail scheme, where the government is giving up to 40,000 euro to the retailers for their innovation, and expanding your e-commerce, business revenue stream. Very, very, very, very helpful at this time. Many companies are considering to expand their online presence, especially from the revenue perspective, So, definitely jump on that, your local enterprise office is your first line your first resort for help. Now, they have a number of scheme one particular which is very interesting and have the deadline next week is called the Business Continuity Voucher which is available for two and a half thousand euro and all businesses based in the Republic are eligible to apply. Of course, they have to specify specific areas you can use this voucher against in terms of mentoring and consultancy primarily aimed at ensuring the continuity of business in the area. I have seen a lot of our own member company, they have applied for business continuity voucher and secured the funding already. I'll show you the numbers in a short while, and there are some other grant schemes available. You just need to see what the key features are. What are eligibility criteria and from that including the lean bit, business improvement for companies? I talked about the local enterprise office support, the business loan, the business continuity voucher, that should cover you? So they there are links available in this document Shashank which people can go, and they can fill the application?
Please see the attached DBEI COVID 19 Take up figures:
Here is a document where you can see a list of all government's support, for example, the Working Capital Scheme, Capital Guarantee Scheme and loan subsidise for business contracts, Business Continuity Voucher for €2500 and the number of people applied. This document shows numbers from April 30 or when this was updated. 3000 application had submitted for the Business Continuity Voucher, 1655 applications were approved; this means the government had already given 3.6 million to businesses to utilise. Likewise trading online voucher if you see over here 573 companies have applied for the voucher, and of that 214 has already received the voucher. So you need to see they are not just lip service. It is available, and if you don't take it, then other people will use it. So get on to it immediately tonight, right now. Here is a list of all the scheme which the government is running and what is the take-up? How many approvals, they have given very, very, very useful information on if others can get it, why can't you take it? So I'll share this document with you as well, you can give it to your team. I think that that's all about it. Shashank, you know, we covered in terms of the cash flows, we covered, in terms of what supports are available. And this document will give you massive clarity.
But just before we conclude, I want to ask one quick question is that to increase the approvability of your application, what would be your advice and you know, cuz every great application there needs to be a great business plan. Could you please provide input on that or like how should the person present the business to these organisation?
The simple answer to that question is that you need to put a lens of the financer or the funder and understand what they want to see. Think about what they are looking for. So lenders are looking at the strength of your executive summary, which is, what we are, this is where we were, this is how we are impacted, right? And this is what we want to do in the next 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months and 24 months with this fund, this is how we're going to repay you This is how our cash flow will look like once we have access to the funding. So think about it from their side of the knot, it's not about you; it's about them. And that will massively increase the chances of your application success rate. Think from their lens; they want to see the list you have or the customer segment you serve. They want to know the strength of your product and services you want to expand and maybe invest in that, but also look at the fine print as well, for example, to apply for a loan from microfinance to pay your supplier to whom you bought the goods before February or before March, they're going to reject the application because it wouldn't classify under the remit of the funding available. So you need to see, you need to know the remit of the funding available in every finance firm and every funder has a very clear remit in what category they can allocate the funds. Another example, the funding for Business Continuity Voucher of €2,500 it has to be for the innovation, it has to be the financial restructuring of your business, it has to be the investment to make the remote working and the digital assets possible. So go through the list of options available, A, B, C, D and E, see where you fit mostly in terms of criteria and also your ability to pay them back as well. That will determine the chances I hope it helps.
"Thanks, everybody for tuning in and if you have any questions you can reach out to me. My email is kapil@aibf.ie thanks again everybody and wish you the very best of 2020 stay healthy, stay safe. Bye-bye bye!"
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