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What Does Your Organization Need To Do To Profit From This Economic Downturn? by Manoj Sharma

People everywhere are aware that the global economy has taken a downturn. Your organization as part of the global business community either has already or will most likely be impacted in some shape or form. Regardless of the impact, thinking ahead what are some of the things you need to pay attention to, to ensure your organization makes the best of this change in economic climate? Below is a short list of things you might want to consider to have your organization bound back stronger still.

Focus on making things better.

Take everything you have and figure out how to make it better. Then keep making it better and even better still till the downturn is over. Know that if you make something truly great, everybody will want it and your market share, along with your profitability and fulfillment levels will certainly increase.

Distinguish creativity and invention from innovation.

When it comes to business, don’t confuse creativity with invention and innovation. Creativity is mind set related and is about making new connections. Invention is skill set related and is about creating new things in a physical reality. Innovation is business set related and is about inventing a new way to add value to other people’s lives. Innovate with a clear focus on increasing your top line, bottom line and customer engagement or you will waste both your time and money.

Go with your educated gut feeling.

Seize the opportunity to get customer feedback. Don’t directly ask your customers what they want through a survey as they won’t understand your business as well as you and cannot see it from your perspective. Do however ask your employees to ask your customers what they want. Then get your employees to improve on what your customers want.

In a downturn your employees need to be prepped to further engage your customers and potential customers. They need to establish an educated gut feeling and innovatively engage in internal innovation dialogues to create products, services and experiences that emotionally turn people on.

Embrace the age of disruption.

You are in the age of disruptions, short attention spans, and faster half-lives. You are on a maniacal roller coaster ride. While going on this maniacal roller coaster ride start to pay closer attention to value propositions and core values. Learn to build greater value propositions and lean how people are actually buying to coincide with their core values. This will give all your subsequent marketing a new competitive edge once the economy picks up.

Transcend your industry.

From the year 2000 onwards the business world has become rich with organizations that transcend industries and consolidate industry wide value propositions. Your organization needs to conjure up value propositions so compelling, ingenious and new that they upend industries. To profit from the above you also need to identify the biggest market possible and work towards capturing it in the down cycle. Get professional assistance on this as it will reap huge dividends.

Dedicate yourself to discovery and excellence.

Now dedicate or re-dedicate yourself to discovery and excellence. Discover what the hugest leap forward may be and strive to excel at it. Do not necessarily attempt to go for it alone. Collaborate with willing parties, bring together value propositions, clarify individual and collective gains and you will magnify your chance of success. People are far more willing to collaborate in downtimes when a new angle is needed, than uptimes when everyone is too caught up in busyness.

Strip away the fat.

Strip away the fat and get lean. Identify the few things you need to do well right now and do them exceedingly well. Do not get consumed with doing everything, it will be too much for you to handle. In the world of sports the downtime is called post-season and it is a time for athletes to recuperate followed by a pre-season which is the time for them to train and shape up. In the world of business the downtime, is called a downturn and the pre-season, is called a troughs.

Stop selling.

To benefit from creating a lasting value proposition, you need to stop selling and focus on having people fall in love with you, our ideas, your ideals, your products, services and experiences instead. Now is the time to ignore fads and look for the established principles that give rise to them instead. Now is the time to stop attempting to get people to buy what they don’t want to and to figure out what they need, want and desire instead. Now is the time to cease attempting to fool people through your marketing campaigns and learn to communicate clear, truthful value propositions.

Answer the “Wouldn’t it be great if….” question.

Work with your team and identify 10 propositions that would be great for both your customer and you. Then find workable solutions to them. If you can’t find workable solutions, innovate workable solutions. Also conduct a “100 New Ideas and Ideals Workshop” and then focus on the few you feel it would be best for you to focus on.

Know the impermanence of all cycles.

Appreciate that creation, maintenance and destruction is a cycle of life. Get clear that your life is brief and then you die. Know that you can only do that many things in your life time. So take the opportunity to figure out how you’d like to live your life, what you would like to bring to it and then go out there and do it with a spirit of excellence. Your reward for doing this now will come when the economy picks up.

Examine proficiency, personality and potential.

You need people who have great mind sets and skill sets to create great business sets. Quickly re-evaluate all your people. Where is the proficiency great and where is it poor? What personality traits do you think would assist your business grow and what personality traits can you do without in a hurry? Who is living up to their potential and who is not? All these are important questions as your people are either your competitive assets or competitive liabilities.


Re-evaluate people, products and processes.

Take the time to re-evaluate your investment in people, products and processes. If you hired well, it would have taken you a long time to get your people together and most will probably work well. Get rid of the poor performers and those who have not capitalized on living up to their potential. Enhance the value propositions of your products or innovate new ones. Tidy up your processes to become more optimal. Invest whatever you can in your research, development and innovation so you can compete better when the economy picks up.

I trust this will assist you to take the problems that come around in a downturn and turn them into profitable opportunities. How well and how fast you do the above will determine your success in the years ahead.

As usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com And if you'd like to explore how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above and other DifferWorld initiatives please feel free to call me at DIFFERWORLD! For more, please go to http://www.differworld.com and http://www.manojsharma.com