User:Stsky~enwiki/Sandbox/Lights On

In business, reducing operations to the bare minimum required to continue serving existing business; colloquially, the least necessary to 'keep the lights on'. It emphasizes only those functions needed to continue serving the firm's customers and slows/halts/cancels all other operations (research, development, hiring, promotions and non-salary compensation, capital improvements, etc.)

During bad economic times, the progression of operations to a lights-on mode typically takes place over several weeks or months of cutbacks, project cancellations and layoffs.

The term also applies to much faster-developing situations, such as a disaster, pandemic or other event that renders large portions of the workforce or infrastructure unable to function.

At larger firms, this mode is part of formal Operational Plan under a variety of names ('Run the Firm', 'Reduced-overhead', etc.) The Plan is used as a tool to catgeorize projects, assets and infrastructure as part of normal operations. While this is usually to help plan for rapid-onset crises, the same designations eventually apply to a slow-moving economic downturn.

Smaller firms usually do not have such formal plans, instead relying on management to designate key people and projects.