15 reasons falling inflation will not be a good sign for business leaders or consumers
While falling inflation might seem positive on the surface, a significant and sustained drop can signal economic trouble for both businesses and consumers.
Economic Slowdown: Falling interest rates and inflation can suggest an actual or imminent economic activity slowdown and rising unemployment.
Here are 15 reasons why deflation, as falling inflation is called, can be a double-edged sword:
For Businesses:
Decreased Profit Margins: Businesses may struggle to raise prices to cover production costs, squeezing profit margins.
Debt Burden: Deflation makes debt repayments more expensive, straining companies with outstanding loans.
Hiring Freeze: Businesses may freeze hiring or even resort to layoffs to cut costs in a deflationary environment.
Inventory Issues: The value of unsold inventory depreciates faster during deflation, leading to losses for businesses.
For Consumers:
Stagnant Wages: Wages often don’t keep pace with falling prices, reducing purchasing power.
Delayed Purchases: Consumers might delay purchases expecting prices to drop further, hurting overall demand.
Debt Discouragement: Deflation discourages borrowing, as the debt burden becomes heavier as prices fall.
Reduced Confidence: Deflation can create a negative economic outlook, leading to decreased consumer spending.
Loan Defaults: As wages shrink relative to debt, defaults on loans and mortgages can rise.
Negative Impacts on Both:
Bankruptcies: Deflation can lead to business bankruptcies, further weakening the economy and reducing consumer choice.
Deflationary Spiral: A vicious cycle can emerge where falling prices lead to lower consumer spending, causing further deflation.
Reduced Tax Revenue: Falling prices lead to lower government tax revenue, hindering public services.
Social Unrest: Deflation can exacerbate social tensions as job losses and financial hardship become more common.
Global Trade Disruptions: Deflation in one country can lead to deflationary pressures in its trading partners, disrupting global trade.
Mitigating Deflation:
Central banks can use monetary policy tools like interest rate adjustments and quantitative easing to counter deflation. Governments can also implement fiscal stimulus measures to boost aggregate demand.
While some controlled deflation can be beneficial, addressing the root causes of excessive deflation is crucial to ensure a healthy and stable economy.
Get help to protect and grow your business whatever the stage of the economic business cycle
The price of a share does not tell you the value of a business. The type of business valuation is key in decision-making. What business valuation you are assessing will depend on why you are making a point of valuing a business:
The value of a business an employee will want will depend on why the employee is working for a business. Some employees live from pay cheque to pay cheque and regard the business to be worth merely the value of pay received each month or week. Other employees see a business as a stepping stone to next career progression and value the business reputation in the marketplace rather than a monetary value will be of more importance. Other employees want to be fully engaged in the mission of the business and need to be kept fully onboard with business plans to place positive value in the business.
Investors traditionally have sought capital appreciation, income or both from their investment in a business. Anything that detracted from profit or revenue generation may not have been welcomed. The proliferation of the Woke Society, if you are ungenerous or socially responsible if kinder, means that ethics social responsibility and good governance (ESG) has meant that many investors want better holistic enterprise risk management (ERM) performance. New jobs have even been created at board level to reflect this, such as Chief Impact Officer responsible for every process that generates any kind of social and environmental impact (as defined by the company’s mission and values).
Customers are valuing businesses differently. Many more consumers use their spending power to punish poorly managed businesses in field of ESG or ERM, and reward businesses performing well in the ESG or ERM arena. We used the word arena deliberately as ESG or risk management in general is now often used as a show pony or window dressing when in reality the business is performing badly in the real world of managing all business risks well.
Business leaders will respond to regulation of their business but in the heavily regulated world of financial services, for example, we still find yearly evidence of poor risk management by banks despite nearly two decades passing from the time the banks nearly sent the whole world tumbling over the abyss to total societal collapse due to the banks regulators and politicians failing to manage business risks holistically well in 2008.
Scanning Horizon For Business Threats and Opportunities
Many are frightened that the next 12 to 24 months will see a long period of economic depression due to failure to manage risks well
Think inflation is bad now – you ain’t seen nothing yet! A food shortage will result in millions starving in 3rd world countries and hyper food inflation in 1st world countries. We are not going to starve but we are going to pay for poor business and economic risk management.
The share price of many businesses over the next couple of years are going to collapse. However, the same businesses value will not have fallen, just the share price. Investors including the person in the street through pensions will see the value of their retirement fund drop off a cliff. Employees will lose their pay cheque to pay cheque existence as many will lose their job. Consumers will pay more for the same or poorer products and services. What are you going to do to protect yourself?
Employees need to keep to keep abreast of the health of their employers business. They may even be wise to pick a different employer who is stronger if they can assess which businesses are strong and which businesses are weak.
Investors maybe better out of the marketplace, or keep up with regular investing. It is counter intuitive. However few can pick the moment of a bear market turning into a depression. The only good thing about a depression is that it will be a good time to invest! Likewise no one can identify the bottom of a market. One solution is to get out of the market but the other is to invest through the depression to get the benefit of the lows to compensate for the loss of the highs.
Consumers need to diversify to protect themselves from loss of money in one area. Cash is king just now. However globally governments are even destroying the value of cash in more ways than one! Real wealth is having enough money to pay for your lifestyle without needing to work, for as long as possible. You may outwardly have money but wealth is measured in financial freedom not in currency or other assets. The value of many perhaps most assets is set to fall.
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Business Strategy During Recession
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How do you recession-proof your business?
How can we protect from inflation?
How to prepare for inflation at home?
The impact of recession on businesses is severe. However inflation can be the precursor of a recession. Central banks are charged with the responsibility of keeping inflation under control partly to ward against recession or depression. Healthy inflation is generally regarded as 2 percent. Many countries are experiencing at least 3 times healthy inflation. Some key economies are experiencing much more than that just now. In other words the biggest economies are suffering from very unhealthy inflation levels. Most central banks have not responded fast enough and should gave started increasing interest rates earlier to control inflation. Some have not even started to control inflation. The long-tail effect of increasing interest rates means that for next 6 months at least inflation will remain out of control. The war in Ukraine may even mean inflation is uncontrollable for years. Out if control inflation leads to a recession at best and depression at worst!
Now is not the time to pat yourself on the back. Surviving pandemic was good, but the next existential threats to your business are already here or rushing towards you.
Rising inflation means that consumers and business decision-makers have the same money but it doesn’t go as far as it once did. The end result is that they buy fewer products and services. Inflation is a driver of a recession. Back to back crisis’s caused by pandemic, war, fuel, energy, fertiliser and food shortages or rising prices could result in extended global recession that turns into a global depression. The global pandemic caused the deepest recession since the Second World War and the world has used all its tools, including record low interest rates and extended Quantitative Easing QE, to scramble back out of the recession. However it means the world is particularly vulnerable just now – with economic risk management tools exhausted or trying to recover.
What Can Governments Do To Reduce Inflation
Reducing Inflation Strategies
Inflation is the sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. It can be caused by a variety of factors, including rising costs of production, increased demand for goods and services, and monetary policy decisions made by central banks.
Governments can take several measures to reduce inflation, including:
Monetary policy: Central banks can raise interest rates to curb inflation. Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive, which can slow down economic growth and reduce demand for goods and services.
Fiscal policy: Governments can reduce government spending and increase taxes to slow down economic growth and reduce demand for goods and services.
Price controls: Governments can impose price controls on certain goods and services to keep prices from rising too quickly. However, this can lead to shortages and reduced incentives for producers to supply goods and services.
Supply-side policies: Governments can take steps to increase the supply of goods and services, such as by investing in infrastructure and education, and by reducing regulations that limit the ability of firms to produce goods and services.
Flexible exchange rates: Governments can allow their currency to fluctuate in value against other currencies. A stronger currency will make imports cheaper and can help to reduce inflation.
Price stability target: Central banks and governments can jointly agree on a target for inflation, and use monetary and fiscal policy to achieve that target.
It’s important to note that reducing inflation is not always the best course of action for an economy. Sometimes, a moderate level of inflation can be beneficial for economic growth, especially in developing countries. It’s important for governments to weigh the costs and benefits of different policies to reduce inflation and make the best decision for their economy.
Many central banks have an inflation target of between 2 percent and 3 percent – seen has healthy level of inflation
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In conclusion, governments have several tools at their disposal to reduce inflation, including monetary and fiscal policy, price controls, supply-side policies, flexible exchange rates, and price stability target. However, it’s important to consider the costs and benefits of each policy before implementing them.
Strategies for business survival during a recession
Businesses fold quickly during a recession. Before you know it, you are losing both suppliers and customers. Both can damage your business and even threaten an otherwise successful business survival. Set a Key Performance Indicator KPI to help you monitor your risk management in this area of your business. A Key Control Indicator KCI could be that no more than 10 percent of your key supply’s come from any single supplier. Likewise a KCI could be that no more than 10 percent comes from a single customer. If you stick to your KCI then the failure of any one customer or supplier is not going to pull your business down with their failure to manage recession risk.
What you set your KCIs at will vary depending on your financial strength, type of industry and current resources. You may never hit your KCIs but they flag up when action is needed or your progress towards better recession risk control.
Expanding your customer base is not just about expanding your business. It is about protecting your business from loss of business. Expanding your suppliers could increase the overall cost of supply during good times thereby limiting your profit. Your management team needs to decide what level of risk you are exposed to, the type of risks and your appetite and resilience to risk.
We are moving from pandemic survival to rapid business development. If you focus your energy on growing your business faster organically with new customers you can ride the economic wave through the various threats to your business.
Just before a business falls flat on its face it can seem that the world was its oyster! The world seems to be dragging itself out of the economic damage of a global pandemic. We are seeing economic expansion at or near record rates across the world. Wages are rising and many countries have unfilled job vacancies galore! What could go wrong? Answer is out of control inflation turning into a recession and high unemployment.
The world has shot its bolt. Due to the economic impact of the global pandemic central banks have slashed interest rates to the bone and in a few cases into the bone! There is no wiggle room left to cope with another economic disaster. Trouble is nobody told our political leaders and they have led us into the next economic disaster on back of an inflationary crisis on back of war, food crisis and energy crisis. You wait for a financial crisis to come around every 10 years then several come along at once!
Inflation may have given you a good opportunity to inflate your prices. The good times are slipping away. Your pricing model may have brought in easy money that will be useful. Times are changing and you may think that new opportunities are appearing for business growth.
Stay on top of your business changing needs:
Profits are cut due to rising costs due to inflationary pressures. Make sure you focus on market prices to seize opportunities appearing in your marketplace. Instead of raising your prices think about reducing your costs or making your offering more attractive to new customers.
Cash is king now! Take steps to improve or maintain cash flow. Pay later and get paid quicker.
Win new customers. Make sure you your marketing and sales development budget is working hard for you.
As interest rates rise there will be bargains. Minimise your outgoings. Reduce your overheads.
Hopefully you took advantage of cheap money. However the days of cheap money have passed or are passing. Now is the time to think about paying off debt. The rising cost of debt could pull down countries never mind companies! Make sure your business is not wasting profit on back of your cost of debt. Controlling your costs will help you to be more competitive in tightening marketplace.
World central banks need to act more quickly and more aggressively to calm inflation rates around the world to prevent a global recession and perhaps even global depression from 2023 onwards. This includes increasing interest rates and increasing interest rates in bigger leaps and bounds.
A healthy level of inflation is generally considered to be around 2% per year.
Why 2 percent?
2% inflation per year is considered healthy because it allows for some economic growth while still maintaining stability in the purchasing power of money. It is a rate that is low enough to prevent rapid changes in the cost of goods and services, but high enough to encourage investments and borrowing. However, the specific level of inflation that is considered healthy can vary depending on a country’s economic conditions and goals.
Who thinks this?
The idea that 2% inflation is a healthy level is widely accepted among central banks and economists. This is because it provides a balance between stable prices and economic growth, and has been found to be compatible with low unemployment and stable financial markets in many countries. The Federal Reserve in the United States, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England, among others, target an inflation rate of around 2%.
How do you reach this target?
Central banks use a variety of tools to reach their inflation target. The most common method is through the manipulation of interest rates. By adjusting interest rates, central banks can influence borrowing costs, which in turn can affect spending and investment decisions. This can then influence the overall level of demand in the economy, which affects prices.
In addition to interest rates, central banks can also use other monetary policy tools, such as buying and selling government securities in the open market, to reach their inflation target.
In some cases, central banks may also use forward guidance, where they provide information about their future plans for interest rates, to influence market expectations and help reach their inflation target.
It’s worth noting that hitting an exact inflation target can be challenging, and central banks may sometimes miss their target due to various economic and financial factors outside of their control.
Is inflation transitory?
Protecting your business from risk of recession and inflation
