Credit crunch, recession, economic downturn, media frenzy, fear …… pain!!
This is what ‘almost’ every business is now experiencing and the associated ‘pain’ is a great teacher!
Nothing new here … BUT …. What this often forces is knee jerk responses associated with cost cutting; all driven by financial metrics; an unbalanced approach that can result in a spiral and most often impairs your competitive positioning and enterprise sustainability.
HOWEVER, what every business still needs, maybe now more than ever, are their clients and customers. You cant walk away from your marketplace if you want to survive and for many, that’s what this cycle is about ….. surviving.
As W Edwards Deming preached many years ago …. “Survival is Optional”!
It’s what you DO now and the decisions you make now that will determine your own survivability and the longer term sustainability of your enterprise.
There will be lessons, some of them hard, that will be learnt from this cycle but what is obvious is that it is driven by two factors; recession which in the normal cycle of events we were probably due anyway, but which could probably have been more easily manageable if it were not compounded by credit crunch making access to finance even more tougher and therefore feeding the recessionary pressures.
OK; so what’s this got to do with a Digital Agency blog??
Well, the fact is that the efficiency and effectiveness of your enterprise is now at the forefront of your mind like never before. And with financial support being even more focused on ’minimum risk’ business cases, this approach will continue to be so even after this cycle of recession has run its course.
Within this challenge, investing in and maintaining your market presence, gaining market share and servicing your clients/customers profitably remains a business imperative.
These factors MUST be prioritised within the prime drivers of cost effectiveness and efficiency as opposed to purely cost-reduction in the quest for improved cash generation and usage.
And for those that get this right, there is the additional opportunity of gaining market share away from your competitors.
OK … so for some of you that have not yet caught onto what this has to do with a Digital Agency blog ……………..
The fact is that the internet now provides the most cost effective AND efficient route to market you have (or is available to you). Even for B2B clients. Getting your internet strategy right and structuring your key business processes and business models properly aligned to the Internet will be vital for survival and for taking market share from the opportunity presented by the current climate. Particularly when RoI from the investment in such a strategy can be clearly demonstrated within accpetable timescales.
If you don’t …………. Your competitors will. What impact will this added pressure have on your business if this happens?? Alternatively, if you do …. What impact will this have not only on your survival but also your sustainability ….. and on your competitors??
So change may be being enforced at this time, but there is also a great opportunity to embrace this change and take advantage of the opportunities presented by pro-active engagement to influence its outcome. Some of the other blog topics on this site will give you some insight into how to approach these challenges; alternatively give us a call … particularly if your FD is driving head-count and cost reduction without appropriate balance.
Whatever happens, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a Healthy and Successful 2009.
