Charles Darwin is often mis-quoted as having talked about “Survival of the fittest”. What he actually said was “It is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent but the one most responsive to change”.
In business this was never more true than today, whether you are a small concern, an SME or a major player.
If you are still doing what you did two years ago or even one year ago it is probably wrong. Let me qualify that. It’s not just what you do but how you do it.
For some of us it may well be fine to still be doing what we did a year or two ago but is there now a better, more productive, more efficient or lower cost way of doing it? Can we do it in a way that provides a higher level of value or service to our customers?
For other businesses, they may well have to find new things to do in the light of the changed economy. For example, electrical contractors who relied on doing a fast efficient job of wiring new houses had to quickly find alternative work or else lay off skilled workers or go out out of business.
Recently I have been working with clients who wanted an outside pair of eyes to help them review their business and spot the things that they no longer notice. Often I can suggest opportunities for savings such as outsourcing a department for a larger client who could save a net £200,000 pa in that way or a smaller client who refocused their marketing on activities which had been proven to deliver profitable business. In other cases I have been able to suggest new markets for existing products and new sales channels to boost sales and gross profit, often with little or no impact on overheads and so resulting in a boost to bottom line profits.
Often benefit can be gained by reviewing the Business Model and for example, as I did for a client recently, licensing the sales function so that instead of employing additional salespeople with the costs and risks that entails, they have licensees paying them to join the organisation, paying for their own training and taking a commission on sales they generate ie no cost to the Company if they do not sell.
If you are not positively looking for change, for new and better ways of doing things, your competitors are likely to overtake you so what are you doing to make sure you are one of the species that survive?
Contact us today to arrange a Business review and start the ball rolling to do things differently and better and more profitably.
