Winning in a Downturn

A few thoughts from Rohit Talwar, the CEO of a company called Fast Future, on tactics and strategies that all sizes of companies can use to 'win' during these recessionary times.  She's also running a seminar on Winning in a Downturn on June 22nd in London. She makes some very good points about:

1. The opportunities that a recession brings:

'A 5% shrinkage in an economy means that 95% of activity is still taking place...Recessions create huge upside opportunities. Rents are lower, raw materials are cheaper, firms are keener to trade, capital goods are cheaper and labour is more abundant.. This creates a tremendous opportunity to step in, examine and enhance every aspect of your customer offering, add more value, differentiate service, make it better and easier for customers to do business with you and increase their loyalty as a result.'

2. The importance of staying close to customers

'Investing time creating a long-term dialogue with your customers will reap long term rewards. The better you understand (i) how your products and services are used by your customers, (ii) the technical and logistical challenges they face and (iii) what their future plans are, the greater the opportunity to provide genuine added value solutions and deepen the long-term relationship. This kind of insight helps you move from simply promoting what your products can do to co-developing solutions and technological innovations for 'what they want'.

3. Focusing on a few key things - rather than trying to do everything with less resources available:

'Free up time and resource by focussing on the 'vital few' initiatives that are critical to your business. Cancel or postpone those which are not considered core '

4. Raising the position of  brands by sponsoring research and then using that to host events

'One of the most interesting trends we are seeing is that of firms shifting marketing budgets from advertising to research sponsorship. Firms are finding that sponsoring research which is of value to their customers and partners creates an output that has a longer lifespan than an advertisement. Furthermore research tends to be shared amongst many readers and positions the sponsors as being serious about the issues of importance to their stakeholders. Finally, research offers a powerful platform from which to create new conversations. Many are finding that while their requests for sales meetings are rejected, customers and prospects are only too willing to attend or host short research briefings that can provide them with useful insights.' Here's an example of this in practice.

Overall, Rohit offers three key messages: