Keep your business one step ahead............. #8
- Adrian Dionisio - business737 owner
- Nov 19, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 22, 2024
The economic landscape changes rapidly and significantly. Consumer behaviour and demand patterns rapidly evolve and will continue to do so. Your business must adapt accordingly.
Post Covid tools such as video conferencing software, webinars, team chat systems, task automation software are common. Remote work, changing supply chains, increased dependence on online stores and virtual services have all become necessary. Those that don't adapt get left behind.
Businesses must adapt by implementing solutions and strategies to solve the specific problems they face. Here we will discuss a set of widely applicable practices which will provide a foundation for future growth and prosperity.
Identify & prioritise revenue opportunities.
It is obvious but nonetheless vital. Businesses must identify their primary sources of revenue and action appropriate strategies around these. This may include targeting campaigns to win back loyal customers, adjusting pricing and promotion, reallocate spending to proven growth sources, creating flexible payment terms, digitizing sales channels and automating processes to increase all round productivity.
Once identified, solutions and strategies must be prioritised to reflect their impact on earnings and the ability to execute quickly. That is not to dismiss the importance of being innovative and searching for new growth opportunities.
Businesses must think outside the box and, with an entrepreneurial spirit, search for profitable growth opportunities whilst simultaneously focusing on what has proven to be profitable.
Digitalisation
We have witnessed a transformation in the way we interact with one another, do our work, travel, spend our leisure time and conduct daily life. These changes have accelerated the migration to digital technologies at a stunning scale and speed, across every sector.
As economies recover post pandemic, it is likely that digital will play a defining role and change consumer habits permanently. More consumers are going to be heading online first for their needs, meaning dwindling demands for brick and mortar locations.
Digital competent businesses are naturally better equipped to survive this new normal. Digitalisation was a ‘can’ before the pandemic. It’s now a 'must' because of the significant opportunities it creates.
To stay relevant businesses must constantly adapt. Businesses can use digitalisation to expand into new markets, offer new products, new services, and expand their customer reach. New technologies mean new ways of thinking and new opportunities. The objective as ever is value creation.
It is import for businesses to invest and adopt digital tools that support recovery and growth. Digital tools such as programs, websites and online resources generally make tasks easier to complete. Digital strategies like search engine optimisation, engagement through social media etc, can help to build awareness of your online presence. Whatever the tools or strategies employed, you must make digitalisation work for you in the right way. Ultimately businesses that do well will leverage their digital resources to build relationships with customers, address issues like revenue growth and focus on customer retention and attraction.
Digital efforts must be focused to reflect changing customer needs. Businesses need to rethink their customers journey and accelerate the development of digital solutions.
For example, retailers need to create a seamless e-commerce experience that enables customers to complete all their requirements online, including initial research, purchase, service and returns. Auto companies for example now need to establish digital distribution models to handle trade-ins, financing , servicing, and home delivery of cars.
If businesses can use the new technologies to deliver better service, greater value and improved customer experience, they stand to benefit from digitalisation strategies.
It is no longer enough to just sell a product
Now more than ever it is necessary to build more engaged relationships with customers. This is one way of ensuring you stand out from the crowd, and as you all know, the online digital world is extremely crowded. For both existing and potential new customers the same holds true.
Every business needs to understand what their customers value. When you now this you can develop tailored experiences based on those insights.
Acknowledge and develop the new employee dynamic
In these times working from home has become the norm. There is a lot of potential in the shift towards remote work, including the lack of commute time, money saved on office space and the associated cleaning and maintenance costs etc. However businesses need to develop this new employee dynamic to ensure consistent and satisfactory levels of productivity.
Ultimately it is output of employees that matters most not the ‘hours spent at work’. Employee output can be easily gauged and monitored in a non-intrusive and non-time consuming manner. Meetings should only be held when strictly necessary. One of the main reasons of regular contact should be to check of employee well-being and to enquire how they are finding their new working environment. Businesses must also consider the factors that can decrease productivity such as mental fatigue, monotony, lack of companionship and human interaction.
Expect a new kind of customer
Whilst dealing with the issues and difficulties of the now, businesses must also consider what lies beyond. Future thinking and long term vision is a must (hyper link to your blog). The competitive landscape continues to be reshaped with different rules, norms, competitors and value propositions. For businesses to remain relevant in the new world they will need to re frame their future and build long term value and a new value based economy.
Businesses will need to keep their existing customers loyal whilst nurturing a new type of customer by offering ever increasing value. It will be necessary to develop customer experience by focusing on easy communications, local relevance, convenience and a personalised service. Keep listening to your customer and respond by taking action to meet their expectations. Never forget that what matters most is a deep understanding of the customer and providing what they want.
New type of business structure
Ideally businesses want to be capable of dynamic decision making and continual adaptation. For maximum efficiency and effectiveness a business wants to be built for agility, resiliency and growth. Often this will mean both pro-active and reactive decision-making, strategies guided by purpose, driven by data, powered by technology and enabled by cloud for faster speed to market. It calls for reorganisation of existing structures allowing more fluidity and creativity.
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