Part 1: Outwitting The Recession

Recessions are tough, sapping energy and straining resources. You've already reduced your costs, rightsized your staff, lengthened your payables, shortened your supply chain. You're listening to your customers and you're tuned into your market. Still, making decisions is hard because the future is so unclear.

And you're certainly in no position to make big moves, right? But what about your competitors? Will they also be just hanging on, waiting for the recession to end?  All of them? Of course not. You know some of them are doing something and you know you should be doing something, too. But what?

In a recession, it's difficult to look ahead while you're running hard just to stay in place. It's easier to ignore pressures to change and just wait for the dust to settle and the economy to clear.  The downside is that you'll clearly be left behind in the dust created by your competitors who've executed the steps needed to succeed going forward. But what do you do?  How do you plan for the future when you don't know what it will look like?

The truth is that sometimes visibility is too limited and the business environment too unsettled to do business as usual. Conflection Point Planing (CPP) is used when going directly from Point A to Point B isn't likely to achieve the desired results. CPP realizes a sustainable competitive future  that may reflect a new value proposition, new products or services. CPP then returns to the present, leaving markers along the way that become the foundations of future growth. Basically, CPP avoids the unanswerable "How do we get there?" by substituting "How do we get back from there?" instead.

The exact steps vary by company size, industry, market, and channel. For each company, it also largely depends on the capital, both financial and intellectual, that the company brings to the table.  No less important in determining future market needs is the determination of employee skillsets and preferences. Deciding what the market will need is one thing; determining whether existing employees are capable of creating a successful product or service in response to those needs with appropriate robustness and necessary scalability at the targeted cost is a completely separate issue.    Both have to be identified, quantified, and satisfied before you have a chance of being really successful -- as opposed to merely being (temporarily) lucky.

We don't know what the future will be like, either, especially the one that specifically affects your industry and your particular business.  We can't resolve the unknowns, but there are useful ways to start thinking about it, practical steps that can help you immediately and some others that will benefit you greatly when the skies clear and you can begin to see ahead.

Of course, we can't determine whether Teleconvergence can help you until we've discussed your situation.  You may or may not decide to retain us to help you reestablish your footing or to to move ahead, but it's still your company, your industry, and your future. Call us when you're ready.  In the meanwhile, for more about our perspective on this topic, please read, "How To Predict the Future and What To Do About It”