However, this coming post-lockdown year will be different.
A nine month restraint on trade has severely fractured the UK economy, causing untold damage, sometimes terminal, to sectors like traditional non-food retail, hospitality, and travel both commute and tourist, via rail, air and sea. The resulting decimation of demand means there is a need for fundamental resets of business models, a subject of separate NamNews coverage in the New Year.
All of this with an overhang of Brexit uncertainty to further complicate the mix.
Companies will struggle to cope with this toxic mix to varying degrees, all reflecting their risk profile and that of their people. In other words, they will act in ways determined by the extent to which they are risk-seeking, risk-neutral or risk-averse…
They will attempt to apply a mix of fire-fighting to survive, trying to be certain about a medium-term that is anything but, and at the same time needing to apply some type of long term strategy.
All of this without being able to derive much benefit from analysis of unprecedented historical performance.
In terms of how 2021 will affect you and your business, think uncertainty, short supply, inadequate resources of time, money and people. This uncertainty will encourage risk aversion in companies playing it safe whilst awaiting a return to ‘normal’...
But the fact that so many businesses will react in this way means there are opportunities available for those that are risk-seeking, willing to take a calculated chance based on inadequate data, making sufficient sense of the uncertainty that they can take meaningful action.. Even companies and management that are risk neutral, willing to take some risk, can avail of some of the opportunities that an uncertain 2021 will provide, in a world of super-savvy consumers unwilling to accept anything but demonstrable value for money.
In other words, for those that are willing to emerge from under the duvet in the New Year, opportunities abound…
However, whilst it might seem reasonable to allow a ‘settling down’ period before making robust plans to cope, pragmatists know that even in normal times, business does not permit such luxuries.
Despite the unprecedented nature of what is still happening globally, regionally and locally, we have to make sufficient sense of the turmoil to survive and even grow a little in 2021. In attempting to so do, we can rely on the fact that many will ‘wait and see’, thereby providing proactive competitors with opportunities to optimise rivals’ ‘inertia’ in 2021…
In effect, we have to try to make the abnormal normal, and attempt to optimise the chaos via a lens of pragmatic realism… In fact, if our business world in 2021 seems in any way ordered, we are probably not looking at it properly.
Essentially, we believe it is imperative that the ‘pandemic’ be regarded simply as a catalyst and that the real damage to businesses and the economy has been caused by universal lockdown. This is a fundamental requirement for anyone wishing to take meaningful and productive action in 2021.
We then have to reduce our offering of Product, Price, Presentation and Place to its very basics, a ‘package’ that is equal to or slightly better than alternatives available, delivering to our consumer literally in any way the choose to buy, and resulting in sufficient satisfaction that they will willingly come back for more... (and perhaps even ‘tell a friend’)…
In effect, we have reached a position so fundamental that we need to go back to basics, as if entering a market for the first time, with a partial advantage of some basic knowledge of the category.
So, as we move into the final reflective-time mode of a final ‘traditional’ Christmas break, instead of trying to forget it all, we have an opportunity to spend a little time trying to reduce our business idea to its fundamentals, meeting consumer need by delivering more than it says on the tin, every time.
But above all, keeping in mind that in 2021 those that can manage risk will survive and can even thrive…
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