They say Guinness is good for you but it seems it is also good for your business if you have a pub.

Guinness have announced a Euro 100 million fund to help and support pub businesses globally. With the impact of covid 19, many pubs and restaurants have had to close. Now Guinness is offering practical equipment and confidence building measures to get the pubs reopened. 

What is interesting in this story is that a supplier is helping the industry that it supplies at this critical time with the world economy in a tailspin. You would expect the suppliers to be the ones needing help? But Guinness has though out of the box and will help their suppliers and they will help Guinness sell more product in the long term. 

What a great idea and one that will be beneficial to the drinks industry. To me this is a model that other industries should look at. I’m shocked at how many businesses have made their staff redundant as if the end of the world is coming and they don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. 

What’s happened to the positive approach that kept many organisations successful through past challenges? Why are industries and some governments only looking at the here and now not long term? Look at aviation’s mass layoffs, grounding and reduction in aircraft numbers. 

Do they really believe it’s the end of aviation? Come on, life will get back to normal and sooner than they think. Ask any airlines that have already restarted their services most are reporting full flights! If this trend continues many airlines will not have the capacity or staff to bring the airlines back to full operations. 

I recall seeing on LinkedIn recently a Captain who had 22 years’ experience with an airline, he was also a training Captain and also an approved test pilot and he was made redundant – hello have we lost all reason in business? Most of the successful airlines have massive cash balances and yet they are not protecting their greatest assets – their people. 

So Guinness has come up with a great idea to help their industry so let’s hope we see some more innovative and long term thinking and strategy in other areas of business. There is light at the end of the tunnel so don’t give up yet!