The Stimulus Package: What It Means For Your Business

Live Panel DiscussionModerated by: Thomas Tan, SAPJuly 29th, 2009

Agenda

How to leverage the $787 billion federal stimulus package (myths, opportunities, resources)

How to uncover the "hidden" stimulus in your business (strategies, tools, examples)

Q&A, Wrap Up

Our Featured Speakers

Chad Moutray

Chief Economist U.S. Small Business

Administration

Steve King

Founder and Partner Emergent

Research

Sam Sliman

PresidentOptimal Solutions

The Current Situation?

Recession: broad-based and severe Real GDP -5.5% in Q1 2009 Unemployment up to 9.5% in June 2009

Signs of improvement Small business sentiment (NFIB index) has been

rising steadily over the past few months (June = 87.9), but it is still too low.

Fed’s Senior Loan Officers Survey – shows continued tighter standards, weaker demand

SBA 7(a) lending – down 46 percent YTD from last year, but loan volume is up significantly since March 2009

Extremely aggressive policy-making Monetary policy: U.S. prime rate down from 8.25%

to 3.25%, Federal funds rate is now targeted to essentially zero

Fiscal policy: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (October), America Recovery & Reinvestment Act

“Where Is My Check?”

Myths “It doesn’t apply to SMEs”

“SMEs are only getting only 1% of the deal”

“It’s only for those who build bridges”

“Where is my check?”

“The money is all gone”

Reality

We’re Here!

Understand the Stimulus Package

Tax Incentives and Provisions

SBA Loan and Lending Changes

Specific Stimulus Spending

+1

+2

+3

Simply Put, it means 3 things for small and midsize business like yours…

What It Means for Your Business

$730 million to SBA – reducing fees to banks, borrowers $400 million in other support to support economic development and

entrepreneurship, particularly in distressed rural, urban, and low-income communities

Tax Incentives and Provisions

SBA Loan and Lending Changes

+1

+2

Making work pay credit Continuation of section 179 expensing up to $250,000 Accelerated depreciation on certain assets Reduced capital gains tax for holding stock for 5+ years

Energy credits A delay in the 3% withholding tax on government procurement

What It Means for Your Business

$30 billion for improving electricity grid and other energy improvements

$27.5 billion for road construction projects

$26 billion to local school districts

$19 billion for health information technology

$7.2 billion for broadband access

$15 billion for scientific research

….

State and local gov’ts handle most of the disbursements

Methods vary by state Federal government

agencies and resources and Federal Business opportunities

Research (any stimulus money I can apply for? Who is spending it?)

Resources (local gov’t public listings, recovery agency websites, i.e. Recovery.og, Grants.gov)

Submitting bids (what is the contracting process? Know the rules and process, be patient)

The “picks and shovels” opportunity (supplying companies likely to benefit from the stimulus package)

Where is the money? How is it spent? What you need to do?

Specific Stimulus Spending+3

Is There Another Stimulus “Hidden ” In Your Business?

How to Find the “Hidden Stimulus”?

Why “Hidden”? Lack of transparency Disjointed processes Lack of data Lack of integration Departmental technology -

strung together in a haphazard way

How to Find? Integrate - need integrated

data to plan and manage your resources

Determine - what can I do differently and what will the impact be if I do it?

Execute - sustainable best practices for a given process / your industry

Where to Find the “Hidden Stimulus”?

What tactics and strategies can you take? Look Deeper for Hidden Costs/Wastes (reduce consignment inventory? Any unprofitable products?)

Turn to Your Back Office (control cash? overdue collections? vendor terms / financing?)

Find It from Your Customers (unprofitable customers to drop? Get the customer records straight to avoid marketing costs?)

Optimize Resources & Operations (automate manual processes? Use data to optimize delivery routes, inventory?)

Avoid Ongoing Leakage (KPI/dashboard to monitor & prevent problems from happening)

Do you have the right tool to help you look?

Uncovering the “Hidden Stimulus” at Optimal

A typical mid-market company Founded in 1995 – founder is still active as CEO 400 pp worldwide, HQ in Dallas with overseas offices 15 years serving clients with SAP implementations

Spreadsheet madness - lack of access to quality data for effective decision making

3~4 weeks to close the books - very little management reporting and extremely late

Inefficient internal processes not scalable for complex operations Manual effort fraught with redundancies, very error-prone…

Tools: SAP Business All-in-One, SAP BusinessObjects Examples: Customer Analysis, Vendor Analysis, Cash Management Key: integrated data to plan and manage resources

Like many midsize

companies

Finding our hidden

stimulus

Continue the Discussion…

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