You don’t have to look far to find out more about our current economic woes and in this climate it is vital that you have a plan of action to help you to survive and prosper. But how do you do this? How to guarantee that you will stay ahead of the game and keep ‘fit for purpose’ in an increasingly challenging and challenged marketplace?
First of all you must find a way to become aware and stay in touch with the regional and global competitive threats and opportunities evolving from emerging business models and markets. By this I mean you need to know what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it – if it works, if it doesn’t and if it is better than what you do.
And you have to have the courage and professionalism to dispassionately challenge your own business model and implement change when it is needed.
The problem is that this is easier said than done. As a business grows, becomes successful and develops its own ‘expertise’, it gathers its own impetus – but the direction you end up going in or the way in which you do it may very likely become irrelevant to new challenges or to current market opportunities. This is why it is so important to assess and review what you do and how you do it, what others are doing and how you should change in order to keep your competitive edge. This takes courage and conviction but it will enable you to change your business model, people, structure, business process and vendors to suit your current and future needs.
Knowing and understanding this lesson is a key to surviving as a business long term. So now is your opportunity, if you aren’t already doing it to ask yourself – what will I change today? And how will I do it?