Tomorrow’s May bank holiday marks exactly two months since the government announced the lock-in. It feels like a lot longer. How long will it seem at the end of September after six months? By the end of the year?

These are not unrealistic timescales. Furlough has been extended until October, although expect to hear this week, according to the Times, that employers will have to begin contributing as the lock-in is eased.

Employers will be permitted to take furloughed workers back part-time, and all employers using the coronavirus job retention scheme will be required to make the payments, even if they remain closed, according to the paper.

Even with this arrangement in place, many businesses have suffered enormous losses, and have only survived because they have been provided with loans, backed by the government, to cover their remaining overheads. 

But now, because the Treasury has told him that deficits are very bad things, even though they're not, the Chancellor has announced that employers, who have not been told that they can trade again, and who have been offered no further funding, must now pay some of their staff's costs.

And many more employers, who are quite well aware that demand for their services will be down massively when reopening happens, will have no choice when told that they have to pay their staff's wages again but make people redundant. It will be that or face an inability to survive as a business as a whole.

After only two months, which in the scale of this crisis is no time at all.

Although it may be just about long enough to begin to see the impact on your business, which is where every business owner’s focus should be right now.

And whilst we are naturally optimistic and the government want us to think the new normal is just around the corner, the facts paint a very different picture.

It would be a mistake to be fooled by the rhetoric, as will the hard-of-thinking majority. It will be a time of huge opportunity for those prepared to grasp it.

Businesses that rely on discretionary consumer spending will fail first and fast (we are seeing this already) unless they can pivot quickly and create new income streams. Those that can’t should shut now and preserve what capital may still remain as they explore new ventures. There is no point putting off the inevitable.

Businesses whose products and services are, or will be, still in demand must find new routes to market themselves and deliver their goods – we are seeing this as well from the more entrepreneurial.

And – most exciting of all – demand for new products and services, and ways to deliver them, are emerging. This will be where the most entrepreneurial business owners will thrive. History is full of examples of individuals who have seen gaps in the market and found a way to fill them.

There are going to be huge gaps opening up over the coming months. Which ones will open up for you and your business and will you be ready to fill them?

Stay safe

Noel Guilford