Loughborough

# 15 – 26th March 2008

Evolution

(Survival of the Fittest)

One business element that most people struggle to accept is change. We all discuss traditional things with a dewy eyed nostalgia. And then we wonder why we have difficulties adjusting our business to meet the new challenges being thrown at us on a daily basis.
 
Would Sainsbury’s and Ford have survived to the present day if they had rested on their early successes? The answer is: No – without constant change, these two large businesses would have gone the way of many of their competitors. In the car industry, for example, in 1913, at the peak, there were 216 British Motor Manufacturers. Over the last 95 years, this industry has consolidated and changed continuously. That consolidation means that there are now only a handful of car brands manufactured in the UK with only a very small number British owned. Many companies that used to be house-hold names have fallen by the way-side. Some ceased making cars because they found something else that they could do better. (Our own Brush manufactured cars from 1902 to 1904.) Others went out of business (some quite recently) and many were swept up in acquisitions and mergers. Like all consumers, car-buyers vote with their wallets. The choices we make have a profound influence on the businesses that supply an increasingly choosy population.
 
As consumers (and business purchasers) become more knowledgeable and more discerning in our buying habits, the companies that supply us must adapt.
 
For your own business, you must ensure that you are constantly understand how your customers are changing. You need to question your own business and to make sure that you have continued to evolve your products and services at the same pace as your customers are changing.
 
Are you a survivor, or will your business fall by the way-side and become extinct?
 
It is useful to understand the things that separate the survivors from those that fell by the way-side. The main difference is: Constant evolution

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
• People
• Process
• Technology
• …….

Questions to ask yourself:

• Is there anything about the way you do business that is unchanged from this time last year?
  • Why are these unchanged – is there a good reason?
• Which of the following factors that influence your business have changed in some small (large!!) way:
  • Suppliers
  • Customers
    • Who buys from you now?
    • Why they buy from you?
    • Who stopped buying from you?
  • Traditional competitors
  • New market entrants
  • Better value substitutes
  • Legislation
  • Staff
  • ……….

What do you need to change to counteract or exploit this?

• Have you checked to make sure that you are getting the same or better results from the same amount of effort or money?
  
• What should you stop doing?
• What should you refine in some small way?
• What new thing will make the difference to your future success?
   

Paul Fileman MIET CEng MCIM
Chartered Marketer
paul.fileman@talktosps.com
Tel:  01509 854447
Mob: 07969 188820
www.talktosps.com