Businesses are changing gear as they step up their ambitions for recovery. In some sectors this means a 'V' shaped bounce back, albeit to newer norms. Most companies have taken the easy route of stripping cost, but no-one ever shrunk their way to greatness or recovery. In fact, narrowly thinking just about your costs is destructive and often costs double in the mid-long term. What about your re-inventing your top line?
The market trader
When it comes to focusing on the top-line and the consumer, some of the most agile business people are market traders. What does the customer want? What's the next craze? How do I create a new consumer frenzy? Whether it's Pokemon this week or fidget spinners the next, the agile market trader mindset might help you reinvent your top-line and focus on demand driven innovation. Here are a few ideas driven by systematic inventive thinking.
Form x Collaborations. What can you get when you add 1+1? In some cases £m's. Like Paris St Germain x Nike x Jordan coming together as partners or Pharrell x Adidas and creating new revenue streams that leverages fans and consumers from both brands. Can you do that within your supply chain? You can reinvent more obscure products such as energy or environmental products, for example.
The sum of the parts. Your supply chain is usually constructed to build up to a single branded Tier 1 product. By throwing up all the brands and parts of the supply chain in the air, are there parts that have value in other applications. Think Tesla and batteries, think Dyson and airflow, think Brewdog and making hand sanitiser. There may be different strengths in each businesses operations, assets or funding that you can all recalibrate and leverage between you. Can you find gems in your product portfolio from the parts of the supply chain?
Lockdown lessons. Take lessons from lockdown to create new products and opportunities. We're all happy with Zoom calls? Happy to have a virtual health consultation? Is there more opportunity for virtual or home delivery of your product or service? Can you offer fitness and wellbeing to a class of 10 in a village hall or to millions over Facebook? Can you use video tech to offer remote viewings, or analyse faults remotely? If you live in Aberdeen could it open new markets in Cornwall?
If you're struggling to sell tangibles now are there intangibles that you can sell, whether that's analysis, consultancy, insight, innovation or brain power. There's a lot of intangible capital within your business that customers may be willing to buy or which will firm up future relationships and orders.
Offering freebies over and above the product you are selling, not only seems like great value and an act of kindness, but can add value for both you and the customer. Let's say you offer 10 days of consulting for free. In those 10 days you could help them find efficiencies within their or create new products by offering a fresh pair of eyes, allowing you to upsell. Airlines have found this useful in repackaging their upselling by taking advice from other sectors.
Buy now pay later. At times you have to split revenue from cash in the short term. Some companies have just stopped buying during lockdown because they haven't got the cash and so have stopped all operating activity. If you have more cash rich suppliers who are willing to provide services on a buy now pay later set of credit terms it may pay to leverage that if in the longer term it makes sense.
The General Electric Company. In the last 20 years businesses have focused on streamlining their core, narrowing product ranges and conglomerates of old, like GEC were broken up and went out of fashion. However, they did have such a diverse product portfolio from washing machines, to miltary and from telecoms to television that they could take advantage of that days economic conditions. Is it time to innovate and diversify your product portfolio and share your eggs amongst a few baskets?
The wall of money. As well as listening to your customers, look at funders, markets and innovation agencies and see where equity partners are likely to fund in future. This is another source of cash for growth and an indication of where the future lies. Sustainability, greentech, IoT, smart tech, AI and digital tech are all right up there and places that we should continue to push whether for creating new products or seeking productivity gains within our businesses. Are you aligned to the future still? Just because COVID came along, it's a short term deviation. The future is still coming.
Howdy Partner! Demonstrate clearly where buying your product adds value to your customer or their business. Is it their top-line growth? Is it efficiencies? Is it risk aversion? Sometimes professional or outsourced services for example are seen as a commoditised overhead. However, can you demonstrate a clear thread that with you their revenue will grow or they become more productive? Are you offering additional services for free that will develop their people? Can you offer industry insight from other areas of your business that will help the customer innovate? Become a valued partner rather than a commodity.
Steal with pride. Industries such as telecoms and media have massively reinvented themselves over the last 30 years. Look across to other industry blueprints. How did it address the consumer? How did it repackage? How did it reposition? How did it resell? What were the commercial terms? Energy for example is starting to consider consumer, demand-led innovation and has compared itself to telecom blueprints. Take another industry. Compare yourself to it. It could stretch your imagination.
So think like a market trader
Be agile. Now more than ever is the time to innovate and source new streams of revenue, innovate your product proposal as you bounce back to recovery. Don't shrink to obscurity like some, but be bold and push the boundaries of your top-line innovation. Be agile like the market trader and create the next frenzy, the next big thing.
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