Company restarts

Company Restarts

Businesses may need to restart for a myriad of reasons, so whether it’s the economy, life changes or unforeseen circumstances, you may find your company in a similar position. Such factors could cause your business to slow or even close. Following such a situation, you may need to reopen your company and restart with a new outlook and big changes.

Learn from Mistakes
If you intend to instigate a company restart, you’ll need to address the problems that resulted in your business ceasing to trade in the first instance. If you have no new ideas for how you will change the initial problems from reoccurring, there’s little chance of you making a success the second time round.

• Be Aware of the Economic Situation. Because economic conditions are always changing, you’ll need to make your business robust enough to ride through difficult periods. This is often done by becoming less dependent upon a specific sector or market condition. Plan for how your business can cope better with fluctuating economic conditions.
• Plan for the Unexpected. From your first experience with your business, there were undoubtedly unexpected stumbling blocks that caused you problems. Can you plan to cope with unexpected problems better when your company restarts?

If your company closed due to uncontrollable outside factors, you may need to look deeper into why and how these factors occurred and if your business could’ve been better prepared to deal with them.

Look at your Business Plan

Your original business plan will need to be revisited and thoroughly reconsidered. Your original market research, feasibility study and contacts should be looked at in depth, as thorough preparation and investigation into why the business experienced difficulties will greatly help your company restart. Original data may have become outdated at the point you choose to restart your business; customers and competitors change, and your business plan should be flexible to accommodate this factor.

How to Conduct a Company Restart

Whether you chose to officially dissolve your company or not will affect how your restart your business.

• No Official Dissolution. First, contact the HMRC to see if any penalties have been imposed on your business. If you are restarting the same business, you may be able to continue as you left off. If you are restarting with a different business idea, you may be better to thoroughly dissolve the business and restart with a new business.
• With Official Dissolution. Restarting will just require you to start a new business if you dissolved your business.