Is it more advantageous to invest in a company during a global crisis?

1.0    Research problem

Firms will always be raising funds at different stages. There are seed or angel round’s for start-up, private equity or venture capital for growing business, private placement or investment banking to undertake a company that is going to be listed, and the public’s money once it is listed. The main use of funds is to expand the business or perform vital research and developments. Firms prefer investor than bank loan due to more manageable risk factors and strategic inputs generated by the investors. Should fundraising activity halt during a global crisis such as pandemic, recession, war, etc.? Investors vastly reduce capital output during this period to reduce their risk (Campello, et al., 2010) and causes a lack of funding to firms looking for expansion. Will companies emerge stronger (Thurm, 2012) after a recession and is more viable to invest during this period?

1.1    Selected key readings

This paper will research the key elements whether a business is investable during a crisis. The analysis consists of hard data and subject matter experts’ opinion making it a mixed research. It should provide insightful factors for investors to determine the hidden opportunities lie with small and medium firms. To provide unbiased and proven fact, this paper’s focus will be deductive based on top down approach. It carries a hypothesis that investing in selected companies during a crisis will yield more returns as compared to investing in them during ordinary times. Appendix 1 shows the relationship between crisis investing and its dependence and appendix 2 for the types of methodologies accessed.

1.1.1    Expansion

One key area identified is new product development via R&D where lease and talent retention or acquisition is cheaper. A company can explore new frontier with new products at a cheaper rate as the aggregated curve causes price decline (Ozyasar, n.d.), new contracts can negotiate lower and stay ahead of the market in terms of innovation (Morbey & Dugal, 2016).

Commercial rental has proven to generate lower rental yields showing rental rates will decrease during a crisis (Carliner & Wilkins, 2011). With a sharp incline of unemployment rate (Cox, 2020), it is easier to onboard skilful talent or renegotiate salary packages with existing employees. Finally, interest rates dropped significantly with options for deferred payment (The Straits Times, 2020) making expansion a lucrative option.

1.1.2    Competition

Another factor is to eliminate your competitors by extra exposure and making your products more affordable and accessible. By having a strong voice over your rivals, the firm will gain new market share and as after the recession when consumer spending increases by 9% (Amissah & Money, 2015), there will be a revenue increment. 

In crisis like a pandemic, delivery services have a spike of 300% (Channel News Asia, 2020) due to the restriction of movement. It is important to spend to nurture good relationships with your suppliers and distributors (Amissah & Money, 2015). During financial downturn, it is also common to acquire poorly performing competitors (Angwin & Meadows, 2012).

1.1.3    Operations

A company should have healthy cash flow to prevent unnecessary disruption and loss of momentum (Turner, et al., 2012). As the operating cost is lower due to recession (Ozyasar, n.d.), more mistakes can be made to trial and error the best practices to fulfil a business operation – this will streamline the processes and helps the company to achieve an optimised state during full capacity.

Firms can thrive after a recession if well managed (The Wall Street Journal, 2012), which is possible with sufficient spending. It prepares them for other adversity and also potentially from the next crisis. It is important to implement new organisational strategy periodically but commonly being resisted by difficult employees (Higgins & Bourne, 2018), it is made easier in a crisis with sufficient cash flow.

1.2    Two appropriate research methods

15 research papers were diagnosed in the literature review as relevant to crisis investing which the methodology can be identified into 3 parts namely survey, interview and data (appendix 2).

1.2.1    Critique 1 

How to not only survive but thrive during recession: a multi-wave, discovery-oriented study

1.2.1.1    Research Method Applied

This study’s objective is to examine how marketing activities during a recession will affect the company’s performance. Its outcome will imply if the payoff is beneficial, unvaried with current or simply none. The research area is within the “Great Recession” which occurred in the late 2000s (Cochrane, 2010) which collapsed the $8 Trillion housing bubble and crippled the worldwide financial institutions (Levin & Coburn, 2011).

For accurate cross-referencing, there are four research methods used in this paper: pilot study for feasibility, structure surveys to reassure relevancy, field interviews and focus group interview to provide a final derivation of the study. This is a mixed-methods research methodology (Terrell, 2012) that is majorly skewed towards qualitative research. There are four research questions.

The most adequate and best usage of the firm resources during a crisis? The budget is the main dilemma during a crisis (Becker, et al., 2015), it is either to cut enormous budgets or invest acutely for courageous firms. In extreme cases firms would wind up entirely during an adversity (Corner, et al., 2017) due to prolonged sunset situations or to preserve capital for another venture.

How additional marketing efforts impact employees? Wage adjustment is a flexible measure that can be implemented immediately and is therefore well-received (Elsby, et al., 2014). As new marketing strategies require plenty of AB testing (Bhat, et al., 2015), employees with reduced pay and additional workload out of their jurisdiction may create imbalance emotions.

Ensuring adaptation and proper execution of the marketing strategy? Human element is crucial, it is important to align the objectives of employees and the firm. Employees should be rewarded both intrinsically and extrinsically (Ozutku, 2012) where intrinsic rewards may play a bigger part during a crisis. 

How would the management shape towards recession and marketing changes? It is not easy for an employee to accept changes for many reasons (Cornescu & Adam, 2016). Management will need to enforce and follow through the marketing procedure. Clear and concise planning will also help in adaptation (Howard & Gould, 2000).

1.2.1.2    Contributions of Method

The order was from survey to field and then focus group interview. The survey was sent to 11,000 top management with 190 usable responses yielding a response rate of 1.73%. It is common to receive low response from top management (Eggert, et al., 2009; Lee, et al., 2007; Wilson, 1999) while being adequate. Respondents are CEO, CMO, VP of marketing, senior marketing manager and director of marketing. 17 of them who come from different industries and mixed consensus on recession spending were picked to form a focus group interview, which was an open-ended session.

Figure A – Interviews of top management

It is apparent that social media was not a popular marketing option back then but there were other means of marketing. The firms that focus on customer relationships during recession are performing better and it is confirmed by the interviewees and partial financial data.

1.3.1.3    Gaps Existed in Method

Several limitations in this paper prevented it from having a global approach. The variety of respondents interviewed are only top management. The source of their information depends on the ground reports and not yet verified. The United States had 6.8 million firms in 2009 (SBA, 2012) while interviewed firms are less than 0.003%. The firm’s size is also a contributing factor as many strategies are not suitable for newer firms (D’Avino, et al., 2014). The interview only consists of business-to-business companies which have low to none impact from various stages of marketing. The author was not able to get their full audited financial data. While most reviewed their performance verbally, the results are being verified. Finally, the global effort plays a huge part as some regions’ buying power are not affected by the crisis and they can continue to consume globally despite the local marketing effort.

1.2.1.4    Pros and Cons of Method

Topics involving money are sensitive and by doing interviews, the subject will give a real-time response without much time to structure a model answer (Almeida, 2017). Author can observe the nonverbal cues on the authenticity of the answer (Kraut, 1978; Rahman, 2016). With an open-ended focus group interview approach, participants can cover anomalies that are beyond structured questions and can reflect based on the previous participant’s answers. Afterall, qualitative data is more affordable (Morse, 2002).

There is however the accuracy of the result as psychologists found out that people tend to not be true to a surprising degree during a survey (Lotto, 2016 ). Questions that need immediate response may not be accurate hence making the results impractical (Almeida, 2017; Atieno, 2009). It can be hard to get a response or stop people from deviating in a focus group. Overall, the author agrees that the sample size is not adequate (Oppong, 2013).

1.2.2    Critique 2

What strategic investments should you make during a recession to gain competitive advantage in the recovery?

1.2.2.1    Research Method Applied

This paper supports the statement that during a recession if the money is invested into good cost, the aftermath results will be satisfactory for most firms (Roberts, 2003). The technical term “recession” is a definitive number of two years in decrease of volume and two years of recovery. There are two methods adopted are correlational study of multiple variables to witness the impact of investment and several case studies to back the findings from the analysis. This study uses the database from the profit impact of market strategy (PIMS) (Mckiernan, 2015) that stretches extensively in terms of period and subjects, it is a mixed research approach that is majorly veered towards the quantitative area.

Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) measures the efficiency and profitability of capital investments undertaken by a corporation (Singh & Yadav, 2013). The first set of variables used in this research are the investment in marketing versus immediate ROCE versus recovery sales versus new market share. The second set of variables used in this research are the investment in developing new products versus immediate ROCE versus recovery sales versus sales made from new products.

1.2.2.2    Contributions of Method

To provide unbiased results, the studies were made on over 4,000 companies within the span of 20 years from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Figure C – Database encompassed different trades.

It comprises a good mix of companies that have invested, maintained or reduced budget during the recession. In this period there were 3 recessions that are triggered by the Vietnam war (1970), inflating oil price (1973) and raised interest rates (1980) that has affected the United States significantly (NBER, 2020). There are four major comparisons made.

Comparison of the marketing impact during and after the recession with delayed benefits from marketing spending. The ROCE during the recession is not giving a visible return. The recovery and capturing of market size though, is worth the delay gratification (Fowler & Kam, 2006) which resulted in a higher yield than spending during ordinary time.

Statistics from sales of new products developed during and after the recession with significant increment in sales figures from new products. The key to staying relevant is through product innovation (Spanjol & Noble, 2020). It is easiest to do R&D during recession due to the environment settings and cost involved (Dugal & Morbey, 1995).

Negligible impact for certain trade where not every trade has a positive yield. The research extends to trades that did not benefit. There are no obvious reasons why some companies fail during an investment recession, it could be due to investing in fixed or working capital, manufacturing, general and admin or related kinds of cost. They are a bad cost and should be avoided (Paunov, 2010) 

The impact for market leaders shows a bigger impact only after recovery. A market leader budgets a notable amount of marketing spending (Ozuem, 2015) and they are worth researching for. The ROCE during and after recession is not showing any prospective improvement and that may delude the company to simply maintain their budget. Due to the prolonged study which then shows the worthiness of investing during recession.

1.2.2.3    Gaps Existed in Method

We are unaware if the subjects in PIMS are already fluent in marketing or adopted certain marketing practices that sets an edge to their marketing result, where such results may give a high discrepancy as compared to firms outside their circle.

This research also lacks apple to apple comparison (Cho, et al., n.d.) especially due to its generalised scope. They are comparing “consumer centric firm” versus “marketing effort to mass market” and “business-to-business firm” versus “product development”. A more thorough research should compare “consumer centric firm” versus “product development” and “business-to-business firm versus marketing effort to related market”. The scope could be more well-defined, but it could be very extensive (Knight, 2010) and therefore is not viable.

1.2.2.4    Pros and Cons of Method

The non-partisan approach of research without emotional basis can prove to be well-grounded (Dowd, 2018). The amount of data collected will provide mean figures to absolve any anomalies and deliberate false. As data will always be there, it will be better with more correlated data and more accurate with better analyser tools in time to come (Assunção, et al., 2015).

It is however such a method is based on the assumption that every business, political, geographic and relevant factors are aligned. The data cannot interpret isolated aberration that requires human input. There is a lack of follow-up and traceability of unclear issues (Alshenqeeti, 2014) which may discredit the topic. To further elaborate, data is a Boolean (Powner, et al., 1967) based on the computer context and assumptions have to be made at some point when a definitive point cannot be met. This concludes the that qualitative methods will always have a lack of isomorphism between and “reality” (Krenz & Sax, 1986).

2.0    Instrument

In quantitative approach, statistics cannot lie (Daniel, 2016). To a degree that even with deliberate false input, the truth can be unveiled based on statistical patterns (Credidio, et al., 2012) if a thorough forensic is conducted. To generate data impartially and globally, the core approach will be an online survey. Being global is essential to my research topic and it is important to have the right variant (Draugalis, et al., 2008). As researches are getting more complicated, strands of concluding interviews would be conducted to reinforce my quantitative findings for maximum credibility (Wisdom & Creswell, 2013). The interview subjects will consist of two groups – randomly picked and high anomaly participants, to understand the potential gaps that may have been overlooked.

In my survey, the prerequisite generalises the type of investors or business owner, fund quantum and experience in the market. It is important to know the distinctive set of bio-data due the never-ending difference between shareholders and directors (Keay, 2012) – which means their interpretations to my dependent variables may vary greatly. Professional investors allocate their portfolio to multiple asset classes include private equity for risk diversification and seasonal harvest (Lekovic, 2018). Determining the fund size allotted to private equity and the years of experience in similar investment is also an important factor to gauge biases and how economically viable is the result. The larger the amount to be invest the more psychologically it will affect the fund manager’s decision (Lan, et al., 2018; Riaz, et al., 2012).

The second section and onwards in the survey will be covering questionnaires based on the three dependent variables that are discussed in section 1.2. The questions will be structured in a way where the subjects get to pick the option per question that best embraces their opinion. All the questions are mandatory and if the subject has no experience in a particular question, he is to give the best intuition on that particular matter. By giving them some pressure, they will be taking the survey more seriously (Kirk-Smith, 1998). The Likert Scale (Joshi, et al., 2015) strongly disagree and agree will be used to collect such data. It is found that Likert Scale is more fun as a survey and will improve the willingness of the participants to give better answers (Roster, et al., 2015). The survey results will be presented in Google Spreadsheet which can then be fed into SPSS (Arkkelin, 2014) for a holistic analysis to understand mainly the correlation, regression, standard deviation and various tests. 

The entire survey will take less than 10 minutes, is broken down to several pages for maximum efficiency (Evans & Mathur, 2005) and yet will be sufficient to garner the desired data. One of the downsides of using Google Form is the URL can be passed around and be abused (Raju & N.S., 2016). The sample Google Form can be found in Appendix 3 and the URL is https://bit.ly/3a67sBC.

2.1    Conclusion

There is insufficient research to determine if funding a firm during a global crisis is more advantageous. The world’s financial system is increasingly fragile (Klemkosky, 2013), together with the climate and unknown impending perils (The Guardian, 2019), we are just heading towards an unpredictable future. Furthermore, we have never been that close to midnight in the Doomsday Clock (Spinazze, 2020) with the complications and ripple effect of COVID-19, and the disagreements between the superpowers (WSJ, 2020). It is optimistic to predict there will be more crises with shorter intervals inevitably.

Humans are highly adaptable (Ilardo & Nielsen, 2018) but that does not mean we can get use to the global crisis and many more of its possible variations. It is important to always be prepared and plan ahead. Further research of this subject area will benefit the business owners and the investors. The business owner should understand the value proposition of additional funds during a global crisis, equip the knowledge and convince the investors to step their investment game. Firms that failed to raise funds will usually blame the bad timing, but the fact is they did not convince the investors on the firm’s perceived value and future’s potential (Haag, 2013). Capital will make or break a firm during a serious crisis (Doern, 2016), and the sequel of this research will serve as an evidence for the mentioned benefactors.

The next report will be complete with the right tools and also be able to identify the advantages in a systematic manner. Additional methodologies including observing the firm’s audited financial reports before and after the crisis and performing multivariate analysis with more extensive samples should also be conducted to reinforce the survey findings. To drill further into the subject, measurement variables should include but not limited to the size of company, crisis category, firm’s industry and country. This will then showcase the anatomy of my research topic in the cellular level.

3.1    Relevance and audience

There are two groups of audience namely the fundraisers and the investors. Fundraisers are the key stakeholders in a fundraising campaign who includes the CEO, top management and other key appointment holders with prior experience. This group of people will read and extract the essence of the report to formulate a presentation kit to convince the investors. The fundraisers may also be a smaller unit like the marketing or R&D head who need additional budget during the time of adversity but the company is unwilling to spend. It is important to get prepared before a global crisis as fundraising does not happen overnight and it is even more bureaucratic for large fund owners.

Investors will range from brokers to institutional investors to fund house owners to M&A specialists to freelance deal-makers. This group consists of people who have control of their money directly and also people who can influence those with the money. This report will serve as a guideline to enhance their investment decision, especially those who are unwilling to invest during a global crisis.

3.2    Communication of research

The official dissemination of this research paper will be hosted online by publishers/providers that are available to download or read online for free. Backlinks and SEO efforts will be applied to make this paper more searchable. A copy will be emailed to everyone who has helped in the participation of the research, especially the survey participants.

Abstract of the research will also be sent for publishing to Tatler, Vogue, Prestige and Heart Media Group that hold several local luxury magazine brands including LUXUO. This demographic of this group matches my target audience. The report will also be sent to all the local business commerce and Enterprise Singapore who provide assistance to SMEs. It will provide an invaluable fundraising resource for the SMEs’.

The final group to disseminate are the industry influence in investment such as GIC, Temasek Holdings, Heliconia, Vertex and Red Dot Ventures. To have well-known organisations endorsing my strategy, the smaller players will be intrigued and eventually search for my article. Once I have received good responses locally, I will partner with oversea distribution channels to further publicise my research.

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Appendix 1 – Venn diagram

Appendix 2 – Grandfather-father-son diagram