The New Age of (Business) Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs once reigned supreme on earth completely ignorant of any force that could bring about their end. Until, Boom! It was over. I look around the business world today and see dinosaurs roaming all around in abundance. Far too many fail to recognize dramatic changes that threaten the extinction of their enterprise despite the warning signs, the available tools, and access to information like never before. While there are obvious examples (Borders, Blockbuster, Circuit City and soon to be RIM) the potential for inertia-based extinction is increasing every day for all businesses.

Today’s prehistoric landscape.... How to recognize if you’re a dinosaur:

1. Have you built scenario plans based on changes in consumers, technologies, and economic factors?
2. Do you utilize tools to collect, monitor, and analyze evolving customer wants and needs?
3. Do you base decisions on strategy, product development, and services on customer data?

Unless you can answer the above with a resounding “yes” it’s time to get to work! WARNING: Do let your gut instincts, your last few customer discussions, or your many years of experience lull you into believing the above does not apply to you – these are traits of the dinosaur.

What events threaten your existence today?

1. Consumer technologies provide a collective voice. Consumers reference that voice to judge your product and brand. You can’t spin or market your way out of it.
2. Getting the word out on a product or service has traditionally been a barrier to entry. This is no longer the case with social channels and powerful online shopping malls like Amazon.
3. Technologies enable new business models that create competition never imagined.

The good news is that every threat is also an opportunity. If you are willing to listen with an open mind; if you focus maniacally on exceeding expectations before competitors; if you are willing to change the way you build, deliver, and price your products and services; if you are willing to break every traditional mold of your business and industry – you can and will thrive.   

5 Imperatives for Your Business in 2012

Act now – your competitors are.

The combination of new technologies, new consumer expectations, and increased globalization offers business a unique opportunity to improve customer value and exploit weaknesses of competitors. These trends also enable competitors to exploit your weaknesses if you are complacent to them. The 5 imperatives below are driving new business models, creating tectonic market shifts, and serve as the foundation for business growth in 2012.

1)  Get intimate with your customers.

Collect and analyze, in real-time, the information that is being shared on exploding social channels everywhere, as well as sales trends in your channels, and behaviors and preferences displayed on the web by your customers. Customers are giving you a focus group’s worth of information every day – find it, collect it, and get connected to stay ahead of their wants and needs.

2)  Make every customer facing employee a genius.

Every customer interaction is a moment that can make or your break your business (some more than others). Treat every interaction as an opportunity. Empower every employee with the tools they need to take advantage of these opportunities. Allow them to answer more customer questions, respond to more customer needs, and provide more value to the customer. In the case of a mobile workforce - extend information and applications to their mobile device to support customers on the fly. Example: a cable installer having full access to a customer’s account information on a mobile device so to offer a complete account service during an install.

3)  Make your buying experience amazing.

Amazon pioneered the new experience online by adding one-click ordering, easy and intuitive site design, and serving up recommendations based on insights from views and purchases. In a physical sense, Apple re-invented the in-store shopping experience (no need for more detail). These examples have raised the bar for consumer buying forever. Your requirement, regardless of your business model, is to dramatically improve your buying experience. Make your product or service easy to buy. And don't kid yourself. Make items easy to find, create one-click or one-swipe to buy, simplify product information and provide easy access to it, enable faster checkout, integrate your storefront with the web and mobile, open up all communication channels to customers – social, video, text, e-mail, etc.

4)  Connect silos of people and information to unleash your value.

Regardless of your industry or company size, you have departments or roles that are to some extent silos – this is how every business is organized. You have sales, procurement, HR, supply chain, finance, engineering, service, marketing, etc. Each organization has information that, if connected with information other departments, would add new value to your customer offerings. You must create an atmosphere, deploy tools, and establish a cadence of sharing information of potential value. There is a competitor out there working an angle that your silos are preventing you from seeing. Don’t let that happen.

5)  Make your value chain seamless.

For any product or service there is a value chain for the customer. For example, a TV provides entertainment value. The value chain for a TV includes the R&D, the suppliers delivering the parts to the manufacturing facility, the distribution system, and the store it’s sold in. All these items allow the customer to buy and enjoy the value of the TV. What you want to do is make this supply chain transparent to the customer. In the above TV value chain example all of these items are transparent. However the value chain is not complete. When you buy a TV you need to figure out what wall mount will work, what wires you’ll need to plug it in, and you need to actually install it. This completes the customer value chain. Every business needs to evaluate their value chain relative to their customer. Make it more complete. Make it more seamless.

In today’s dynamic environment inertia is the enemy. Evaluate every core assumption in your business. Are you making, delivering, pricing and selling your products or services the way customers want? Or because that’s the way you’ve always done it or worse because it’s the way everyone is doing it? These 5 imperatives clear the way for the winner in your market – will it be you?

Act now – your competitors are.