Today I want you to have a think about your organisation and its suppliers in general, digital or otherwise. And ask yourself the question; are your suppliers costing you money or adding value to your business?
Naturally with speaking with a lot of businesses we hear a lot of information and comments about costs, investments, pricing information and a lot of other information that enables us to get a good feel for how a business perceives different items within their business and supply chain. There is an excellent book titled The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, which if you haven’t read I’d urge you to go out and buy a copy now. The book can really be summarised by the image below;
Source: http://slightedgecommunity.com/blogs/12726/3614/beyond-the-12-steps-the-slight
And summarised further by a quote from Yoda in Star Wars;
“No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda
The same is true in business. You either make the right decision, or the wrong decision, there is no middle ground. Many businesses often make the wrong decisions when it comes to their digital assets, but we’ve already talked about that quite a bit recently. Here I want you to take a bit of time and think about your business in a slightly different way than you do currently. Think critically about where you are now, where you want to get to and if the decisions that are being made are working towards these goals or away from them. As Yoda said, there is no try, you are either making strategic decisions daily which are working towards your goals or you are naturally moving away from your goals either by doing nothing or making the wrong decisions.
Markets are changing at a faster pace than ever before and as a business it is essential that you keep up to date with these changes to compete. There is an enormous cost of doing nothing within business as competitors are continually improving and markets are ever shifting. We’re not talking about significant innovation within your business, although this is absolutely essential and a topic for a future blog post, no, where talking about incremental improvements based on making strategic decisions that are going to move your business forward.
To put this into perspective, below are a few graphs showing the cost of doing nothing compared to the results of making the right decisions. The top graphs show a 5% decline year on year based on an ever more competitive market place, which you have failed to keep up with, and the bottom graph showing a 5% increase year on year based on making the right strategic decisions. The data is clear;
(click for larger graphs)
Remember, you are either actively improving your business in all aspects or you are falling behind. There is no middle ground of staying steady. Take some time and have a think about your business in a critical way for every aspect. And remember, we always have time for a coffee if you want to bounce a few ideas off us, we’re a friendly bunch and will always give you honest feedback and comments about your digital and technology choices whether this is what you want to hear or not. We like to work with businesses and help them along their journey to their goals and ambitions.
Michael Cropper