Last month, I said that January drags. It does, although to contradict myself, it now seems only two minutes since Christmas. But while the nights are getting lighter, prospects for the economy are not doing the same, according to the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.
I have written before about how I cannot decide on how bad any recession will be for our industry. Currently there seems to be more demand than supply, as a reduction in the number of operators and drivers has more than compensated for any drop in work that is actually out there.
Assuming that there is a recession, what can we in the coach industry do to survive it and come through the other side?
I am too young to remember the last one, except for hearing my father periodically saying “don’t they know there’s a recession on?” Because of that, I don’t really know what to expect. But we have survived the pandemic, Brexit, PSVAR and anything else that has been thrown at us, so I assume that we will be able to weather the latest storm.
I am neither smart nor qualified enough to tell everyone how to run their businesses. But I have started to explore at what I can do. Should we look at work that we would previously never have entertained, if the diary is not particularly full on a certain day?
Is the fleet being utilised to its full potential? I recently sold a smaller vehicle because it wasn’t earning. We could easily have kept it, but the six-weekly inspections, the age profile and the cost of parts meant she had to go.
Are there any grants out there that we are not accessing that we should be? Our accountants pointed us in this direction and I was amazed that we qualified. Are the garage staff getting best value, or just picking up the phone to a friend who works in parts?
When was the last time you did a direct debit purge? £100-odd per month is nothing, but if it doesn’t give value, should you keep paying it? Contracts can sometimes be a pain, but if the work available does reduce then then the guaranteed income that they provide could be a godsend.
But I cannot be all doom and gloom. Do UK holidays become more popular if travelling abroad becomes cost prohibitive? Day excursions rather than full weeks away may also be an option that families consider. Once you get them on a coach, many are surprised at just how good we are!
Railway strikes provide another opportunity to showcase our industry. The local racecourse generated a good income for us last year when the hourly rail service was suspended.
If forecasts are correct and the economy does shrink, we may all need to change the way we do things. Accept a bit less for a job than we would like, or even do the odd thing that we don’t normally. But there are certainly fewer of us about, and that has to work in our favour one way or another.
