Around the world, smart companies will forgo the pleasure of waiting for regime change to generate a more business-friendly environment and labour market flexibility and begin investing in higher productivity and new market potential.
Optimistic and forward-looking companies are already reconfiguring their business and marketing plans to address 10 mission critical changes:
1. Governments are no longer regarded as the source of solutions. The answer to market failure has become process innovation and sustainable private sector prosperity rather than subsidies for failure. Governments are seen as heading in the wrong direction with a bias towards viable alternatives.
2. Development of new product and service ranges by small companies will open up opportunities for investment in market consolidation and the growth of medium enterprises able to more readily adapt to brand leadership in a very competitive online digital media market place.
3. Marketing executives will make the transition to new time and space realities. Digital media means that the time is always now and the place is where the customer wants to be. This means that product life cycles will get shorter and more competitive.
4. Leading companies will build more interactive advertising and marketing platforms that generate brand appreciation rather than mere brand awareness. Web-based firms will expect greater profit increase than ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses.
5. Companies that were previously reliant upon government contracts and public sector expansion will shift their focus to a more competitive private sector investment in outsourcing and labour saving innovations. The bias will increasingly be on substitution of part-time workers for flexibility with contracted supply for adaptability.
6. Team-building and quality recruitment practices will generate significant improvements in measures of customer satisfaction and levels of year-on-year performance.
7. Enhanced customer relations management and data mining will focus business development to focus on revenue returns and customer retention as a key to building top-of-mind awareness of premium brands. It is now vital to invest in brand audits to understand why customers choose to bring their business or sends it to competitors.
8. Larger companies with a strong off-shore presence in the emerging markets of Asia will build both brand awareness and yields to investors by extending their regional distribution value chains. Building brand equity will be the key to growth.
9. Global companies are seeking access to the developmental capacity of small and medium enterprise to educate consumers and generate rapid access to new customers. Increasingly, big companies will buy successful prototypes and encourage the smaller companies to act as pioneers in the public interest and avoid over-capitalisation.
10. Cloud computing and digital direct marketing will steadily replace more rigid software and services licensing models, thanks both to an improvement in technological capabilities and to changes in marketplace demands. This has all the markings of a disruptive technology — those that change the game as it’s currently played.
See this article for more on cloud computing as a disruptive technology.
The best way for smart companies to capitalise on these trends is to make the most of a growing consumer willingness to improve lifestyle experiences and open their wallets to remain ahead of the pack.
Dr Colin Benjamin is an entrepreneurship and strategic thinking consultant at Marshall Place Associates, which offers a range of strategic thinking tools that open up a universe of new possibilities for individuals and organisations committed to applying the processes of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. Colin is also a member of the global Association of Professional Futurists.
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