The new VUCA environments as we are living have served to rethink the decisions made by some people of the old school and from which many have believed “closed eyes” forever, the famous “paradigms”, which have become a ballast that prevents us from changing how we do things …
Times have changed, it was a long time ago when we dedicated ourselves to managing abundance, the problems of societies and companies were different: if we did not get enough production with the quality that we would like, if customers had to do too much ” row “to buy the products or services or if we do not manage to hire enough employees to respond to the demand. In those times very few companies maintain professionals in marketing and sales.
But with a drastic drop in demand, with a market increasingly saturated with suppliers and where price competition is day to day, we can not continue to run our company with the same mental schemes of yesteryear. We must not only bet on innovation in our products, services and processes, but we must go a step further and question everything, sacrificing the sacred cows.
In this era where we must manage the shortage and fight every inch of the market, it is absolutely essential that we move forward in the next step of innovation, we dare to rethink all the essential truths of our business, and put in doubt the “has always been done A) Yes”. This next step is that of strategic innovation, which can activate absolutely transformative growth through questioning aspects such as:
1. In what business are we? Although it may seem a trivial question, it is not at all. One of the main and most important barriers that we are going to encounter when transforming our company is in our head. We often confuse the objectives of the company with what really is of value to customers. If we start to read our competitive advantage not from what we produce but from the client, we can unlock transformational growths.
2. Who are my clients? I know them? We have become accustomed to treating our clients as if they were segments of the population and not people, which leads us to take too generalist approaches that do not really satisfy any client. For example, do our clients like “leisure” (segment) or “theater” (real)? If we begin to understand our clients as the people they are, with tastes, preferences and different ways of understanding life, we will be able to bring out tremendous opportunities based on niches. It is difficult, but what is technology for? Using it, we can detect micro-niches within our customer segments where our offer is working especially well and do not impact the price, and focus the batteries on it.
3. Can I get to the market in another way? One of the main limitations, especially if they are companies that have years of established, is the way to approach it. For example, who says that to reach the client, we need a commercial force? They remember these words: “it has always been done that way”. And who says: that we have to let the client choose. In several sectors where this has traditionally been the case, the environment leads companies to dare to question these truths and re-regulate the market: changing by an online ordering system and allowing the customer to choose only among a few standardized options, which has led to achieve savings of more than 30% in the cost structure, which can affect the customer and strengthen a leadership difficult to imitate.
These three are just some of the growth options that we can unlock in the crisis if we really dare to those thoughts of the nineteenth century that are converted into preconceived ideas, the “usual” way of doing things. What we must promote is synergies between the experience and accumulated knowledge of companies in the market with the “fresh” and often disruptive ideas of young students and those who wish to undertake, in a model where all will benefit from integration. Many times it is necessary inside companies to motivate workers so that in order to achieve differentiation in the market we adopt the mentality of the practitioners, imagine that we are the young apprentice recently entered into the company without work experience and we innocently ask ourselves those truths : “And that … Why is it like this?” Does it really add value to customers?
This is where the triple helix model works (companies, Universities), and where governments must promote business innovation through the creation of innovation and entrepreneurship centers (such as technology Hubs), which allow them to provide support services and business capitalization; business incubators, training, technology transfer through universities and financing services such as: seed capital, investors, risk capital, etc.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?