The recent economic conditions have changed the rules of business forever, it seemed; all you needed was a sexy IPO, cold nerve, and the magic carpet of momentum trading. But even as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists were dismissing traditional business models as antiquated and conventional business wisdom as old school, we found ourselves wondering if they were right.
For years we had watched new management ideas come and go, passionately embraced one year, abruptly abandoned the next. One thing is abundantly clear to me...
Devise and maintain a clearly stated, focused strategy.
You can succeed by competing on low prices, top quality, or great service. And it doesn’t matter whether your strategic direction comes from the CEO, a consultant, or a collaborative executive team. The key to achieving excellence in strategy, whatever you do and however you approach it is to be clear about what your strategy is and consistently communicate it to customers, employees, and shareholders.
It begins with a simple, focused value proposition that is rooted in deep, certain knowledge about your company’s target customers and a realistic appraisal of your own capacities.
What does matter, it turns out, is having a strong grasp of the business basics. At outside the box we have three basics...service excellence, product excellence and business excellence. These three basic principles have seen us prosper through these crunch times.
With service, we have a dedicated program of events to attract the best customer service people, and keep them at their best by delivering constant training and development.
Product excellence is enabling our team to constantly deliver the best marketing for our clients...and this can even include developing proprietary software to compete with Google’s analytics. Finally business excellence ensures we provide the best environment for our team, our clients and suppliers to achieve their best work. It’s simple and it works.
We see many businesses big and small (we currently have 358 live clients) and the best of them have devised and maintained a clearly stated, focused strategy...have you?
