Winning Strategies in Post-Recession Times

It's an essential time to get management thinking out of the box about challenges facing your business after the recession.  Make sure your team is mobilised before it's too late to ring in the changes.

Use the following newsletters to sharpen your plans

It's official - the recession is over!

Start changing the rules of the game

2nd March 2010

Now you must manage two realities. Firstly, the end of the recession signals that the next upswing begins in earnest – about 24 months out. Secondly, assuming the downturn is over, expect your industry to start growing, but moderate your enthusiasm with the knowledge that for some time, volumes will remain closer to today’s depressed levels than to the 2006/7 peak.

Its time to be more innovative, but proceed with care. Use the Perry & Associates’ model for “managing in changing times” to move your business up a gear or two.

Get positive – consider the opportunities to change the rules of the game.

Prospects for change are endless; new products, new alliances, new routes to market, new sales strategies. The next 20-24 months is not much time to get your Big Idea up and operating like a well oiled machine!

Experience from helping our clients innovate tells us the following steps are essential to success:

• Validating the Big Idea by researching your changing customer, international experience and parallel environments.
• Developing and specifying the concept in every detail.
• Testing a prototype with customers and modifying as necessary.
• Building and launching the new proposition.
• Ironing out the bugs and developing new operating competences.

Going from Big Idea to sustainable advantage with controllable risk. Here’s a process:

• Your executive team lists their Big Ideas.
• A Game Changing Workshop is held to build out and then filter the concepts into a shortlist.
• Customers’ actual needs are researched, focusing on those relating to the shortlist.
• Successful ideas are converted into specific business propositions.
• These new propositions are tested with relevant customers.

Perry & Associates can help with this entire process; do so on a modular basis or help your company by focusing on one of these steps.

Companies that acted on our PerryScope #72 of the 20th November last year - the quarter in which the recession halted - are now well on the way to validating their rule-changing ideas.

If you would like to talk to Perry & Associates about how to get urgency into the execution of your Big Strategic Idea, give Mike Perry or Phil Ridge a call on 011 804-2741.

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A "What If?" Scenario - Why The Recession Won't Last Forever ... and what you should think of doing next

18th August 2009

We might be riding along an economic trough right now, but eventually there’ll be a spectacular climb to new economic heights. When economic cycles are graphed, the result looks much like a route map for a Tour de France mountain stage. It’s tough to call the economic pattern and it’s tough dealing with turbulent times, but as they say, the bike race is won in the mountains.

Let’s look at some What If’s? about these economic cycles, the strategic themes you can apply at each phase and consider the real purpose of scenarios - thinking ahead to the next phase.

The Economic Cycle Pattern:

Like riding in the mountains, this is all about long climbs, short fast, often terrifying descents and journeying along an economic valley until the next ascent.

When the USA hits economic turbulence, the rest of the world is soon affected. Looking at the ten economic cycles in the USA between 1945 and 2001, we see that the average duration of each phase is as follows:

• From economic peak to next trough – 10 months
• Time in economic trough – 20 months
• From economic trough to next peak – 27 months
• From peak to next peak – 67 months

(With thanks to the National Bureau of Economic Research)

The USA fell from the peak in December 2007; South Africa followed around August 2008. What If? We apply these average cycles to South Africa? We know using averages is dangerous but it’s illustrative. Here’s how it works out for the South African economy as a whole – your own industry may lead or lag these:

• Commencement of descent into economic trough – August 2008
• End of descent – August 2009
• Ascent to peak – starts about June 2011
• Next peak – September 2013

Strategic Themes for Each Phase Of This What If? Scenario:

Here’s a concise checklist:

Descent into the economic trough (10 months): Theme #1 – Move fast. Cut costs, conserve cash, re-budget – by now already you know this! Think ahead because in this period your customers will have changed their attitudes and decision processes too. Undertake an objective investigation of what they’re thinking; how they’ve changed (you should have talked to Perry & Associates on this issue by now)!

The journey through the economic trough (20 months): Theme #2 – Focused execution. Use the customer insights from this investigation to create propositions that are right for the times. Keep the spotlight on performance, spend marketing budget with care and execute strategy with enthusiasm. Think ahead to the next phase about one new initiative. A typical example is to implement a relationship building process with those of your customers who will be first to benefit from the coming upswing. (Given that this phase might arrive in June 2011, talk to Perry & Associates about testing the new concept within the next six months).

Early part of the ascent to the next economic peak: Theme #3 – Make one or two major strategic moves, be these acquisitions to extend your company’s competence or creating new channels of distribution to your future markets. Think ahead about the big picture; the way in which competition and customers will evolve over the next few years and how you might change the future rules of the game (sometime from July 2010 would be good to examine the future Big Picture scenario and look at how your company must be repositioned for this environment. (Perry & Associates look forward to discussions with you about a major strategic review at that time).

Never get totally distracted by the turbulence of the day.

Stay true to the values of your brand; show loyal customers that you care and appreciate their business; align your resources to focus on the execution of strategy. Keep thinking ahead about getting new, objective insights, whether it’s in good times or bad.

If you would like to discuss why we think the recession won’t last forever and get help in thinking ahead about your next move, give Mike Perry or Phil Ridge a call on 011 804-2741.

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Some Thoughts For When This Recession Is Over ...

30th June 2009

By now, every business is operating to its “Recessionary Gameplan”. Management must continue to remain vigilant in this regard but it’s also time to think about how well your organisation will be positioned for the economic springtime that must inevitably follow. Now is the time to introduce some of those key strategic changes and new ideas that will more strongly position the business for happier times.

Here are a selection of ways in which our clients have prepared to get through the recession and be better positioned when the good times eventually return:  

• Unpack your vision for this innovation to develop the detailed actions necessary for an effective roadmap that will make change a positive reality.
• Reshape your idea, without compromising quality, based on a real understanding of the practical issues of implementation or market and competitive scenarios facing your organisation.
• Formulate creative business solutions to overcome the constraints that the unpacking and reshaping has revealed, this will lead to tactics for accelerating implementation.
• Get external assistance to develop the strategic initiative into a workable, tested prototype that is ready for launch.

Not all of these steps are easy but Perry & Associates can help you by taking your critical big idea and making it workable before the recession comes to an end. We aim to be invited back for further assignments so we always deliver a quality solution.

Meanwhile, while the icy winds of recession are still blowing, our practice is to talk about our clients’ budget before designing the proposed intervention so that it’s more targeted, focused, shorter and, therefore, cost effective.

Today’s times require that we adhere particularly closely to what market research says about us –

“Perry & Associates prices for the relationship”.

Tough times are good times to restructure the way an industry works and a view from the outside on how this might be done is always valuable.

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Are uncertain times a challenge to the business plan?

A special offer from the “What If?” people.

20^th October 2008

Perry & Associates, the “What If?” people, can help improve the chances of success over the next 18-24 months with a rapid assessment of the business plan, for a fixed fee. Our review includes:

• A second opinion - Evaluating the real challenges to the plan
• Added reality - Analysing the implementation constraints
• Exceeding expectations - Identifying opportunities to exceed timing and revenue targets
• Avoiding implementation road blocks - Helping make the difficult decisions that are critical to successful implementation

For example, one of the most important implementation factors today is the robustness of marketing plans – how to make the most of the available market. This requires a detailed understanding of which markets and segments will give the best growth. Next is whether organizational resources, particularly sales and relationship management teams, are properly aligned with these growth opportunities.

In uncertain times, you should be asking fundamental questions about the choices that make up the business plan. This is a discussion where objective, experienced and innovation-oriented outsiders can make an important difference.

If you’d like to talk, give Mike Perry or Phil Ridge a call on (011) 804-2741.

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