By any analysis, we’re in difficult times for businesses. The pressures imposed by Brexit, by Covid and now the war in Ukraine have resulted in spiralling costs and added friction in your processes for import and export, as well as scarcity for key goods.
Today we’re taking a look at how your strategy can adapt to these new pressures without compromising the core values that make it unique, and attract the loyalty of your customers.
A New Appreciation of Risk
It’s important not to turn away from all your business ambitions during times of financial downturn. While it’s vital not to overextend when financial hardship is harder to recover from, leaving opportunities on the table will see you outstripped by rivals who are prepared to push themselves.
What you need to do is build into your strategy a new appreciation of the risk involved in growth projects, bet it the financial risk of a new branch not attracting customers enough to balance the investment you’ve made in it, or the risk to your brand of adding new products that conflict with and confuse your offering to existing loyal customers.
Adding new processes to assess the risk of a proposition and your readiness to pursue it will help insulate you from some of this risk. Checks could include the cost of the work compared with your existing revenue and balance, the success of previous similar efforts, and consultations with brand experts to ensure you’re adding to your reputation and not undermining it.
Meeting Your Customers Where They Are
One of the important ways you can turn to face periods of uncertainty and hardship is not in changing your processes or offering, but changing how you communicate it to your customers. A change in emphasis in your marketing copy, or even where you place your adverts can shine a new light on your brand as offering value for money (which is not the same as being cheap. If you’ve previously traded on being a high end, or high quality brand, going all in on cheapness may in turn cheapen your reputation).
The important thing to do here is note what the core values of your business are and ensure this change of emphasis doesn’t undermine them. Again, building into your strategy the assessment of marketing for brand boosting or damage.
If you’re worried about making changes to your strategy at this sensitive time, it might be an idea to get some expert help. A London strategy consulting firm seems to exist for every industry and level of resource, so you should find some options who can help you.