The first thing that has to be said about backup plans is that there is a definition of a backup plan that your bank uses for its purposes, and a quite different definition of a backup plan that you’ll want to use for your purposes. Trust me – you don’t want to experience the bank’s “backup plan”. When a bank talks backup plans, it usually means (at least as a first step) your banking relationship being transferred to “Credit & Asset Management” or some equally ominous sounding department that is typically interested in only one thing – getting the bank’s money back as quickly as possible and then sending you on your not-so-merry way. That’s the bank’s idea of a backup plan – commonly referred to in the industry as the “secondary exit” when described in credit papers. As you may have already guessed, this secondary exit usually means selling off your assets and placing your business into liquidation.The first question that the bank asks when considering an application for credit is “Is there an underlying, viable, sustainable business here?” Or, to put it into terms that we have been using throughout this series; “Is this business bankable?” In answering these questions, a great deal of analysis is done and your business is assigned a “PD” or Probability of Default based on the estimated ongoing viability of the business. The PD, expressed as a percentage, is an estimation of the likelihood that you will default on your loans within the next 12 months. If you default, the bank has already calculated what they need to know about what to expect from their “backup plan”. Another measure called the LGD or Loss Given Default would have been calculated for your business and is an estimate of how much the bank stands to lose (also expressed as a percentage) when they move from default to recovery – selling off your assets.The backup plan I’m talking about here is the one you need to have prepared for your business. Preferably, your backup plan will kick into effect long before you start defaulting on your loan repayments. Otherwise, the bank’s backup plan tends to take precedence over yours.So how do you go about putting this backup plan together? There are really four “steps” to putting it all together, and the great thing is, the first step is already nearly done for you. That is, it’s already nearly done if you’ve taken my advice from the first few articles in this series and you are now the proud owner of a business plan that includes a sound risk management plan.Step one is all about measuring the things that you need to measure in order to keep tabs on the key risks you’ve already identified in your risk management plan. Needless to say, it does absolutely no good to identify risks your business might be exposed to and then come up with ways to mitigate those risks if you’re not going to measure key elements of your business (internal factors and external factors) to see whether or not you’re being exposed to those risks on an ongoing basis. So step one is simply to regularly measure how your business is going against the potential risks you’ve identified in your business plan in the “risk management” section.Step two is the evaluation of the things you’ve been measuring. In other words, you need to be able to critically analyze the data you’ve collected and understand the implications of them for your business. This is the most important step in your backup plan, because without it, you cannot progress to step three and four and finish the backup plan. Not to mention, you’re left with a load of useless data that you’ve been collecting to mitigate identified risks to your business and you have no clue what it all means. Proper evaluation is required to see how you’re traveling at avoiding or minimizing the risks, but it also allows you to do step three, which gives you the practical, “what to do” part of your backup plan.Step three is to adapt your business plan in whatever way necessary to improve your business, make your business more successful and ensure the long-term survival of the business as a whole. In short, step three is about “reinventing” your business regularly based on the evaluation (step two) of the data you’ve been measuring (step one) to ensure that you NEVER have to revert to the bank’s backup plan, no matter what. The U.S. Marines have a motto that reminds their troops how to perform in any situation, even in the heat of battle – “improvise, adapt, and overcome”. Now, in business, as I imagine would be the case in war, I think it’s always better to do a lot of planning to reduce the amount of improvising necessary. But you get the point – things don’t always go to plan – that’s why you need the backup plan.These first three steps sound pretty straightforward, pretty simple. But getting it right couldn’t have more profound implications for the survival of your business. And properly thinking out what to measure, how you interpret the data collected, and how to constantly improve how you do business will definitely make your business more bankable. Simple? Maybe. Easy? No way. Even the best business minds in the world know that the first three steps don’t make for a complete backup plan if you don’t include one more step…Step four is to seek out expert advice. You will not be able to run a lasting, successful business without creating relationships with trusted advisers that can help you out from time to time. In fact, having established relationships with key advisers that you trust and are willing to “share” your business with comes in handy in almost every aspect of what I’ve been talking about in this series – from putting together a business plan to creating and updating your backup plan. A business owner that thinks he knows everything he or she needs to know without the assistance of some expert advice from time to time is fooling himself and no one else. He certainly won’t come away from an encounter with a bank without giving them at least one reason not to back his business. Connections with and, to an extent, reliance upon key advisers in key areas should never be considered a weakness but an advantage. Competent, trusted advisers can help even the most talented business owners keep a proper sense of perspective on the “forest” and the “trees” simultaneously.Consider some key areas where a trusted adviser could be helpful:Accountant- Do you have an accountant that can help you understand the numbers, what they mean, what the key drivers of your business are and how to act to improve the bottom line? Or do you have “some guy” that you talk to once a year when you need your taxes done?Solicitor – Do you have a lawyer that knows your business, your industry and your individual situation to the extent that he can look out for you and proactively keep you up to date with legal issues that could potentially impact upon you and your business? Or do you have a solicitor (that you only go to when something has become an emergency) that you know only because he did the conveyancing on your last property purchase?Financial Planner – Is your financial planner creating opportunities for you and growing your investment or retirement portfolio in a manner consistent with your appetite for risk and the plans that you have agreed to in regular consultations? Or is your planner just the guy that helped you set up your self-managed super fund that now consists of a term deposit and the commercial premises you operate your business from?Business Banker – Do you have a business banker that is like a business coach; that understands how to run a business and understands how you run your business in particular? Is he proactively looking after your needs whether or not it means he’ll sell you another product? How often does he call you? Visit your premises? Do you have a business banker or a glorified bank teller?Of course, you don’t really need a backup plan if these four steps sound all too hard. Remember, the bank has a backup plan prepared if you don’t already have one. But the bank won’t back your business if they think that they are going to have nothing to rely on other than selling up your collateral. They want to see that your business has made plans to adapt to adverse circumstances and that you are not so set in your ways that you cannot think of alternative ways to run your business if a problem arises.
S&P 500 Biotech Giant Vertex Leads 5 Stocks Showing Strength
Your stocks to watch for the week ahead are Cheniere Energy (LNG), S&P 500 biotech giant Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Cardinal Health (CAH), Steel Dynamics (STLD) and Genuine Parts (GPC).
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While the market remains in correction, with analysts and investors wary of an economic downturn, these five stocks are worth adding to watchlists. S&P 500 medical giants Vertex and Cardinal Health have been holding up, as health-care related plays tend to do well in down markets.
Steel Dynamics and Genuine Parts are both coming off strong earnings as both the steel and auto parts industries report optimistic outlooks. Meanwhile, Cheniere Energy saw sales boom in the second quarter as demand in Europe for natural gas continues to grow.
Major indexes have been making rally attempts with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 testing weekly support on Friday. With market uncertainty, investors should be ready for follow-through day breakouts and keep an eye on these stocks.
Cheniere Energy, Cardinal Health and VRTX stock are all on IBD Leaderboard.
Cheniere Energy Stock
LNG shares rose 1.1% to 175.79 during Friday’s market trading. On the week, the stock advanced 3.1%, not from highs, bouncing from its 21-day and 10-week lines earlier in the week.
Cheniere Energy has been consolidating since mid-September, but needs another week to forge a proper base, with a potential 182.72 buy point formed on Aug. 10.
Houston-based Cheniere Energy was IBD Stock Of The Day on Thursday, as the largest U.S. producer of liquefied natural gas eyes strong demand in Europe.
Even though natural gas prices are plunging in the U.S. and Europe, investors still see strong LNG demand for Cheniere and others.
The U.K. government confirmed last week that it is in talks for an LNG purchase agreement with a number of companies, including Cheniere.
In the first half of 2021, less than 40% of Cheniere’s cargoes of LNG landed in Europe. That jumped to more than 70% through this year’s second quarter, even as the company ramped up new export capacity. The urgency of Europe’s natural gas shortage only intensified last month. That is when an explosion disabled the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia that had once supplied 40% of the European Union’s natural gas.
In Q2, sales increased 165% to $8 billion and LNG earned $2.90 per share, up from a net loss of $1.30 per share in Q2 2021. The company will report Q3 earnings Nov. 3, with investors seeing booming profits for the next few quarters.
Cheniere Energy has a Composite Rating of 84. It has a 98 Relative Strength Rating, an exclusive IBD Stock Checkup gauge for share price movement with a 1 to 99 score. The rating shows how a stock’s performance over the last 52 weeks holds up against all the other stocks in IBD’s database. The EPS rating is 41.
Vertex Stock
VRTX stock jumped 3.4% to 300 on Friday, rebounding from a test of its 50-day moving average. Shares climbed 2.2% for the week. Vertex stock has formed a tight flat base with an official buy point of 306.05, according to MarketSmith analysis.
The stock has remained consistent over recent weeks, while the relative strength line has trended higher. The RS line tracks a stock’s performance vs. the S&P 500 index.
Vertex Q3 earnings are on due Oct. 27. Analysts see EPS edging up 1% to $3.61 per share with sales increasing 16% to $2.2 billion, according to FactSet.
The Boston-based global biotech company dominates the cystic fibrosis treatment market. Vertex also has other products in late-stage clinical development that target sickle cell disease, Type 1 diabetes and certain genetically caused kidney diseases. That includes a gene-editing partnership with Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP).
In early August, Vertex reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and raised full-year sales targets.
S&P 500 stock Vertex ranks second in the Medical-Biomed/Biotech industry group. VRTX has a 99 Composite Rating. Its Relative Strength Rating is 94 and its EPS Rating is 99.
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Cardinal Health Stock
CAH stock advanced 3.2% to 73.03 Friday, clearing a 71.22 buy point from a shallow cup-with-handle base and hitting a record high. But volume was light on the breakout. CAH stock leapt 7.3% for the week.
Cardinal Health stock’s relative strength line has also been trending up for months.
The cup-with-handle base is part of a base-on-base pattern, forming just above a cup base cleared on Aug. 11.
Cardinal Health, based in Dublin, Ohio, offers a wide assortment of health care services and medical supplies to hospitals, labs, pharmacies and long-term care facilities. The company reports that it serves around 90% of hospitals and 60,000 pharmacies in the U.S.
S&P 500 stock Cardinal Health will report Q1 2023 earnings on Nov. 4. Analysts forecast earnings falling 26% to 96 cents per share. Sales are expected to increase 10% to $48.3 billion, according to FactSet.
Cardinal Health stock ranks first in the Medical-Wholesale Drug/Supplies industry group, ahead of McKesson (MCK), which is also showing positive action. CAH stock has a 94 Composite Rating out of 99. It has a 97 Relative Strength Rating and an EPS rating of 73.
Steel Dynamics Stock
STLD shares shot up 8.5% to 92.92 on Friday and soared 19% on the week, coming off a Steel Dynamics earnings beat Wednesday night.
Shares blasted above an 88.72 consolidation buy point Friday after clearing a trendline Thursday. STLD stock is 17% above its 50-day line, definitely extended from that key average.
Steel Dynamics’ latest consolidation could be seen as part of a larger base going back six months.
Steel Dynamics topped Q3 earnings views with EPS rising 10% to $5.46 while revenue grew 11% to $5.65 billion. The steel producer’s outlook is optimistic despite weaker flat rolled steel pricing. STLD reports its order activity and backlogs remain solid.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based company is among the largest producers of carbon steel products in the U.S. It engages in metal recycling operations along with steel fabrication and produces myriad steel products.
How Millett Grew Steel Dynamics From A Three Employee Business
STLD stock ranks first in the Steel-Producers industry group. STLD stock has a 96 Composite Rating out of 99. It has a 90 Relative Strength Rating, an exclusive IBD Stock Checkup gauge for share-price movement that tops at 99. The rating shows how a stock’s performance over the last 52 weeks holds up against all the other stocks in IBD’s database. The EPS rating is 98.
Genuine Parts Stock
GPC stock gained 2.8% to 162.35 Friday after the company topped earnings views with its Q3 results on Thursday. For the week GPC advanced 5.1% as the stock held its 50-day line and is in a flat base.
GPC has an official 165.09 flat-base buy point after a three-week rally, according to MarketSmith analysis.
The relative strength line for Genuine Parts stock has rallied sharply to highs over the past several months.
On Thursday, the Atlanta-based auto parts company raised its full-year guidance on growth across its automotive and industrial sales.
Genuine Parts earnings per share advanced 19% to $2.23 and revenue grew 18% to $5.675 billion in Q3. GPC’s full-year guidance is now calling for EPS of $8.05-$8.15, up from $7.80-$7.95. The company now forecasts revenue growth of 15%-16%, up from the earlier 12%-14%.
During the Covid pandemic, supply chain constraints caused a major upheaval in the auto industry, sending prices for new and used cars to record levels. This has made consumers more likely to hang on to their existing vehicles for longer, driving mileage higher and boosting demand for auto replacement parts.
Fellow auto stocks O’Reilly Auto Parts (ORLY) and AutoZone (AZO) have also rallied near buy points amid the struggling market. O’Reilly reports on Oct. 26.
IBD ranks Genuine Parts first in the Retail/Wholesale-Auto Parts industry group. GPC stock has a 96 Composite Rating. Its Relative Strength Rating is 94 and it has an EPS Rating of 89.
Microsoft Dynamics Business Central for Manufacturing – A Viable ERP System?
Why Should we care if we can use Dynamics Business Central for Manufacturing?Given the disruption of the past year, a lot of businesses are investigating ways to work remotely and in a hybrid work environment. There are a few technologies that manufacturing companies need to use that don’t work well remotely. One of them is ERP systems. That’s why we should care about Dynamics Business Central for Manufacturing.If you are looking to replace an ERP system because you want to ensure it facilitates remote work, cloud ERP is where you need to look. My experience is almost entirely with what is often called “SMB” or Small and Medium Business manufacturers.There are not a lot of good, modern cloud based ERP systems in the mid-market / SMB space. There are even less that really support manufacturing. That means that the best cloud systems are priced out of most manufacturers budget.Oh, In case you are wondering, Microsoft defines SMB as businesses with less than 250 computers. That’s a pretty large manufacturer.What is Business Central?In the simplest terms, Business Central is the new brand name for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. In all the ways that count this cutting edge new cloud based ERP is the old Dynamics NAV reimagined in the cloud.Microsoft did not shirk on the technology either! They have a boat load of money, and they were willing to spend a lot of it on Business Central.The full name of the product is Dynamics 365 Business Central. That 365 should look familiar, because it appears on Office 365, Microsoft 365 etc…This does mean that Business Central is part of the same suite of products you might already be using for your Outlook email, Teams communication, Microsoft Word or Excel productivity tools. And yes, that is a big advantage to Microsoft. It doesn’t mean that it will work in Manufacturing however – so that remains to be seen.How does it compare with more traditional manufacturing ERP?I recently wrote a blog comparing Dynamics Business Central for manufacturing with a pretty well respected mid-market pure manufacturing ERP called Infor Visual ERP.I worked extensively with Visual ERP for almost 20 years (ironically I never sold a copy in all that time). I ran the firm that people who had trouble with the system came to for help.When I migrated my business away from Infor Visual, I investigated a lot of products. I settled on Dynamics NAV (which later became Business Central) after significant research.By 2014 we had started switching Visual ERP customers Microsoft Dynamics NAV manufacturing. There are a few small areas that Visual might do a bit better in. That is more than overcome by two main factors that make Microsoft Dynamics Business Central for manufacturing really shine.CustomizabilityDynamics NAV and now Business Central are extremely easy to program, which let us enhance it in ways you absolutely could not with Visual. It’s so easy to program that we are essentially giving away “Missing” Visual features when we sell the product.This customization let us plug any holes we found. It also allowed us to do the one thing Visual customers always cried about. We could make small, easily maintained, incremental changes. We could adjust the system to make it work better for the customer.We avoided any kind of massive programming (although in my time I’ve seen other partners who didn’t avoid the same). We focused on making really useful changes that allowed the customer to get rapid benefits. This made a huge difference to customers. It can be a game changer when a very small change saves staff hours every week.Dynamics 365 AppSource AddonsMore or less related is the existence of addons for Microsoft Dynamics products.When we first started selling Dynamics NAV for manufacturing, there was no AppSource. AppSource is like the Google Play store or Apple Apps store. It’s a place to go and rapidly (in seconds really) install addons.In the early days these addons existed, were certified by Microsoft, but did not exist in any central location. Today things are even better. With Appsource we can really enhance Dynamics Business Central for manufacturing. I mention a couple of those modules below.Wait! I have to get Addons
Agile Manufacturing
Version Management
Inventory Planning
Demand Forecasting
Machine Centre Management
Capacity Planning
Finite Loading
Production Bill of Materials
Production Scheduling
Supply Planning
Modes of Manufacturing for Business CentralI tend to think of manufacturing ERP projects in terms of the mode of manufacturing being used. There are different definitions from different organizations (mainly APICS) but these are the ones I tend to see and my take on how good Business Central for manufacturing is for these modes.Engineer to Order – ETOThis is my favorite. I worked at an ETO for a few years before starting my own business. Dynamics Business Central for Manufacturing includes a really powerful project accounting module called Jobs. Since ETO manufacturers are really project manufacturers, this jobs module is a solid foundation. There are a few additional addons that I strongly recommend (including one that we created) to make the fit even better.Overall – Business Central for ETO is really good.Make to Order and Make to Stock – Production ManufacturingMake to Order and Make to Stock are usually two separate modes of manufacturing (and they are) but I combine them into one mode I call Production Manufacturing. The out of the box manufacturing modules that are part of Business Central Premium work great for these businesses. Many of them also want the addins that I list below – which are great extra features.Job ShopsJob shops tend to come in the biggest variety and tend to actually not fit that well into either ETO or Production Manufacturing. I’d want to see the Job Shop to see whether it’s more of a micro-production shop (very common – I call these “repetitive job shops”) or whether it’s more of a custom mini-project manufacturer like a light ETO.These businesses vary a lot in what they make. A food co-packer is technically a job shop. So is a welding service business, a small machine shop etc…Whatever the case, it is a good fit for Dynamics Business Central for manufacturing.Process ManufacturingProcess Manufacturing is usually related to making one of the following:
Cosmetics
Chemicals
Nutraceuticals
Pharmaceuticals
Food manufacturing
Process manufacturing needs some heavy duty addons for Business Central to work properly. This is outside my comfort zone to be honest. The regulations and batch manufacturing processes are really unique. I have a few colleagues that I send these kinds of prospects to. Those addons for Business Central are extremely good, and handle this industry very, very well.Graphics Arts ManufacturingPrint Manufacturing is it’s own sub-type, really a form of either Job Shop or Production Manufacturing depending on what they make. These businesses don’t work as well out of the box with Dynamics Business Central for Manufacturing. They usually fall into these categories.
Commercial Print (magazines, business carts, posters, flyers etc. – a real Job Shop)
Folding Cartons (think a toothpaste box, or cereal box. Can be production or Job Shop)
Flexible Packaging (these companies make the plastic bags you get consumer goods in)
Labels (could be a wine bottle label, or a shampoo bottle, or your aspirin).
Wide Format (think huge banners, giant photographs on walls in a mall etc.)
This mode of manufacturing has a really great addon for Business Central called PrintVis. PrintVis is a Print manufacturing MIS software addon that turns Business Central into arguably the best Print MIS in the market.Add-ins Recommended by MeMy team has reviewed many addon solutions since we started working with Business Central for manufacturing. Here are our top choices:InsightWorks Shop Floor Insights (SFI)This is a manufacturing execution system for collecting job costing data (time), production reporting and materials use in real time. Comes with a nifty scheduling tool also.InsightWorks Warehouse Insights (WHI)This product is my favorite wireless barcoding solution for warehouse management. It runs on most of major brands of wireless devices used in warehouses today. I think it’s a great mid-level warehouse management solution.Netronic Visual Production SchedulerFor those who need a a graphical drag and drop scheduler, Netronic is the industry standard for Business Central. Their Visual Production Scheduler is more or less for visualizing and manually editing the schedule. The Advanced Production Scheduler is more robust and will do best fit scheduling.ConclusionWe’ve taken a look at using Dynamics Business Central for manufacturing in this article. I’ve had the opportunity to oversee the implementation of this system in more than 50 companies, and so far, so good. For that SMB manufacturer with 20 employees who work in the office and 60 that work in the shop – this is a great system. We’ve got a few customers with 500+ total employees using it very successfully. We also have a few with 10 total employees, and they are able to make it work.If you are a manufacturing company that is in the small or medium market (again – less than 250 computers) looking for ERP I strongly suggest you look at Microsoft Dynamics. I can confidently say that as an ERP Dynamics Business Central for manufacturing is a great fit.