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How to ride the
next big wave
Four controversial ways to prepare your business for an
industry sea-change
At some point, most industries undergo some form of
transformational shift. Sometimes this happens over a period of time, like
the growth of food sales in the pub industry, giving most of the players
time to adapt and survive. Sometimes, like the changes currently happening
in the music and publishing industry, the shift is much more rapid and
gives the fastest-movers the opportunity to create, and corner, a whole new
market, whilst others are left to consolidate, chase or die.
So here’s the question: when
the next big wave hits your industry, will you see it coming?
One thing’s for sure: listening to your current
customers won’t help. Ask your customers what they’ll want in five years,
and they will ask for more of what they’re already getting, but with lower
prices and better quality. Henry Ford illustrates the point: "If I had
asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse."
So what can you do to prepare yourself? How do you
ensure you ride the next big wave, rather than being swamped by it?
Here are four big controversial ideas to help
Four ways to increase profits
How to leverage your customer groups
It’s a simple fact of business life that some customers
are better for you than others. But how do you know which to prioritise,
which to develop, and which to leave behind in order to improve the
long-term profitability of your business?
Here are the four steps to a profitable customer
strategy:
1. Establish true
profitability
The true costs of servicing a customer are often hidden,
especially in large business-to-business environments. There may be complex
terms, rebates and over-riders. There may be many contact points, formal
and informal support relationships, and there may be a myriad of
account-specific issues that take time, or generate costs, from securing
initial orders right through to after-sales management.
Only by understanding the true cost to serve, and the
“pocket price” – the actual price paid after all of the discounts and deals
– can you really understand the financial value over a given period, that a
customer represents.
Click here for the other
three steps
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