Does it look like and sound like turbulence has returned to your business and industry? Well it does to a lot of the smart money also.

According to the Wall Street Journal article “Wary Companies are Destocking” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203911804576653520002677088.html) , you should worry. This means those companies are cutting their inventory of raw materials, which is the finished product for other companies, possibly yours. They also are pulling out their Plan A for continued modest growth and Plan B for a slump. So how meaningingful are those options and which ones should they put into effect?

As you contemplate the impact of the actions of these major companies, it may raise several questions like the following for you.

1. How thorough are your Plan A and Plan B if they need to be executed?
2. What changes do you need to make?
3. How likely on a scale of one to ten do you see your optimistic option being?
4. How likely on that same scale of one to ten do you see your conservative option being?
5. How much wider versus the current status quo should you make either Plan A or Plan B?
6. Decide now in advance of the requirement to make the decision, how much of your finances, people’s efforts and management time you will deploy for an upside opportunity.
7. How can you use this process as a stress for the next six to twelve months?

Whatever insight you gained from this brief process, consider how to make money from this process. How hard will it be to start? My suggestion is for you to block out some quit time to strategically think through some version of this question. How can you use what you have learned from investigating in more depth the questions above to create a Plan C which is focused on creating an opportunity?

Finally, actually do something to execute the tactical steps you generated from the contingency planning process.  Or engage additional expertise with a risk management consultancy or risk assessment service to help.