Businesses need new models and new approaches if they are to continue to grow in today’s competitive world. Stats SA recently reported that positive contributions from a number of sectors drove up the GDP to a nominal standing of R126 trillion by the end of Q2:2019, totalling a 3.1% growth. Mediacom South Africa’s Imraan Rajab, Chief Operations Officer, highlights today’s building blocks for nominal growth.
The old model for growth is dead, and it is about time to shake up an age-old industry. It’s time to crown the new model. It may be hard to pivot from our traditional reliance on scale and efficiency. But growth, today and tomorrow, will be based on the people who surround the consumer experience, as well as human-centric workspaces. Learning to change is the first part of adapting, and in this case, adapting will require putting people first.
Why do businesses need to change, you ask. Because there are fewer and fewer new markets to enter and you can only cut your way to efficiency so many times. At the same time, sectors are also being shaken up by more knowledgeable customers and disruptors who are looking to cash in on lazy incumbents, often bypassing well-established niches and intermediaries.
It’s about more than just growth
Businesses of today need to put people at the centre of everything they do. This doesn’t just refer to customer-centric marketing but has evolved mean so much more in today’s competitive landscape. Consumers want to know that when they vote with their wallets, they’re voting for an organisation that stands for more than just profits, that is adding something to their lives and to their planet. Defining this ‘reason for being’ is especially critical to attracting and retaining the best talents in any organisation.
The large and growing businesses of the future will seek out rainbows of opportunity, never putting all their eggs in one basket but exploring every possible avenue for growth. They will be flexible, always ready to test new ways of collaborating and selling.
We increasingly see the importance of expanding the lens through which we view and monitor competitors. Especially considering how rapidly markets are shifting due to technological innovations and changing consumer expectations. A new competitor can seemingly emerge from nowhere to challenge a perceived existing market leader.
You only have to look as far as the likes of Netflix claiming that the video game Fortnite is a bigger competitor than other streaming services to appreciate the scope that should be applied to competitor monitoring by all organisations.
Getting it right
When the decision is made to focus on growth, companies need to look at why their company exists and articulate their ambition in terms of the impact on people and the world around them.
That means linking business growth to KPIs that demonstrate human growth and ensure this is also part of their incentive structures. This is very different from the traditional approach of prioritising only financial objectives and involves a total focus on benefiting customers, colleagues, and communities. Because any business model can be copied, what stands out as a brand is the ability to link commercial ambitions to something more meaningful.
Secondly, they need to look at what they do. That means ensuring they offer ever-evolving experiences instead of just products or services, have the flexibility to use multiple business models, and constantly view themselves as market challengers rather than incumbents and consider how that changes their behaviour.
It means ignoring the fact that you might have 30% market share and considering life as a 3% company but with ample room to grow. This change of viewpoint drives a constant desire to optimise what works. It encourages them to build in-house innovation labs and explore unexpected acquisition possibilities.
Third, they need to look at how they operate and the culture of their organisation. This can often be the hardest part because it means loosening up internal hierarchies and pushing accountability down to consumer-facing staff. It means offering staff new career paths that enable them to leap around rather than have to follow a set route to the top and it rewards those demonstrating entrepreneurship within the company.
A cultural revolution
Changing cultures so that innovation and diversity is part of the company ethos pays dividends because it enables colleagues to collaborate seamlessly, with a common goal. This can give teams the freedom to demonstrate a diversity of thinking that allows them to anticipate opportunities and threats as well as generating new insights that combine creativity, data and technology well before their competitors.
Part of this culture shift should be to create an environment where employees feel safe enough to explore unchartered territories, fail regularly and learn as a result. Organisational learning can only happen through individual learning. This culture that accepts failure as a step in the process towards growth, results in organisations that are more capable to spot and take advantage of elusive growth opportunities.
Making these changes is not easy and can’t be done in a day, but any business that has a need for growth should accept change. In today’s world of rapid change, few of us can rely on the old routes to growth and we should all explore new routes to success.
Only by examining all aspects of the way we behave as business leaders, marketers and individuals can we ensure that we are truly doing everything possible to drive growth for our companies and our people.
Granted, all this can make business sound complex. And it is. But there is growth to be found, even if it isn’t always in the most familiar places. To find it, business leaders need to develop new skills, moving away from command and control into unexpected partnerships, speciality brands and new business models, all while focusing on the needs of the people that surround each choice.
Published on 17 September 2019
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