“I think being proactive is quite important, and businesses that would succeed now in the near future are the ones that are taking the opportunity to pivot the business and look at ways to restrategise and improve the way they do business. Because this is what we call the new normal. It’s going to be a lot different to how business was conducted in the past,” he said.

“Conducting a business online, e-commerce is so important right now. It’s the new way of doing business. The bricks and mortar retail shop front is one source of revenue for dealing or getting new customers, but then going online has always been talked about for years now, but the pandemic has forced businesses across to think about how they can expand the offering and build an online presence.”

Being proactive and planning for the future is of the utmost importance for businesses as we enter a post-pandemic world, added Mr Mansoor.

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“There’s no room in this current market or climate to be reactive. You need to be proactive. You need to plan for the future,” he advised.  

“And planning could be as simple as, how much cash in the bank would I have at the end of the week? Is that going to be enough to pay my debts? Is it going to be enough to fund my growth plans? Do I need to think about getting assistance? Do I need debt funding? Do I need equity funding for my growth plans?”

According to Mr Mansoor, this kind of future forward-thinking will be paramount as the government disaster payments are scaled back.

“Now that the [stimuli] are all scaling back, winding down, I foresee ad hoc support from the government, but you don’t expect to see them constantly happening. Businesses have to plan for no stimulus or no government support as your worst-case scenario so that when it does happen, which will happen really soon, you’re not going to be in a position of strife because you’ve already planned for it,” he said.

“You’ve put numbers on a piece of paper as to how your sales might look, what your cost might look like. Also taking into account payment of superannuation, taxes, employee entitlements, and making sure you got your key suppliers on site to help support you, as you trade out of the lockdowns or trade out a restricted trading as you then move on to full-blown, normalised trading, whatever that might look like.”

For lawyers working with these businesses, there will be a number of challenges to address, including contract restructuring and evolving business plans.

“The first step is just to engage with your clients and see how things are going for them. How things have changed, what are the pain points and from understanding what the pain points are, we can then identify the solutions. So, what can we do to scale back the expenses or restructure committed expenses? And that goes back to contracts, leases, rental agreements, et cetera, and what options are there for their clients to manoeuvre and negotiate, amend, such agreements that really have been on foot pre-COVID,” Mr Mansoor added.

“If there’s an opportunity to restructure existing contracts with the client, then maybe bigger picture restructuring opportunities might be the next step. But at this stage, it’s really about having the conversation with the client, understanding what’s going on, what’s changed, what they think might happen in their industry because a lot of entrepreneurs are very on the pulse as to what’s going on within the industry, and then carve out solutions from there.”

In terms of how Olvera is looking to better support businesses right now, Mr Mansoor said he was advising businesses on how to approach the post-pandemic market and educating them on industries that may be more affected than others.

“We are quite passionate about working with businesses, and the type of clients we work with could be distress or ones that are high growth, that just need that direction as to how to see the business. And we understand that businesses are going through challenging times now coming out of the lockdowns and the callback of government support,” he said.

“The bottom line is really also engaging with other professional advisors like accountants and lawyers so that being a professional advisor, we can come together and support Australian businesses to come out of these challenging times and trade stronger. We want to see the economy come back to life. It’s good to see that the streets of the CBD are now literally people trickling back in the office. It’s a good vibe, and we want to support the growth of businesses and the economy at large.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Mirzan Mansoor, click below: