We all probably remember a company called Motorola, or even had one of their products. That company, for a long time, was one of the leading businesses in the branch of telecommunication. You can say a telecommunication giant. They introduced the first handheld phone a long time ago in 1973. But at the turn of the century their business failed hard, just because they didn’t listen to the needs of their customers. Although they still had a top-notch hardware they failed to keep up with software innovations in that field. Also, they completely ignored the 3G system that was a breakthrough at the time. The CEO Greg Brown later addressed his company’s collapse with the following words: “Failure was our fault, not economy.”
In the hindsight, they would probably still be around if they reinvent their brand.
Image by Malachi Witt from Pixabay
The mistake of the Motorola company was not acknowledging the new technology trends but there are many mistakes that can trigger the fall or just stagnation of one company. It is crucial to find and pinpoint your company’s problems. Once you are aware of the problems, the best thing to do is to reinvent your company, partially or completely.
It is scary and risky to make big changes to an already functioning and well-built company. People choose to do it for different reasons. Often that is because they want to conform to new developments in an ever-changing economic ecosystem. Or maybe you want to reinvent your business because it’s reached its plateau of growth. You can think of reinvention as starting a new business but not from ground up but from a higher point.
Reinvention can be fundamental or just a little but important adjustment. It is a good idea to retain most operations that your consumers are accustomed with, and tweak just a few elements of your company. A business that manufactures web cameras, for example, can still maintain all of the production equipment but change focus on sport action cameras.
Every change is scary and for a reason. You can literally destroy your company if you reinvent it in a wrong way. So preparation, research and careful planning are essential. But if you are not feeling up to that kind of task, you don’t have to do it alone. There are a lot of consulting firms that can help you, like the creationbc.com. They are not doing it for the first time like you, they have a lot of experience.
Start with yourself
The biggest mistakes sometimes go unseen because of our own inability to take an honest look at ourselves. Our ego can create blind spots in our perception of ourselves. It is part of an unhealthy defence mechanism. For example, you can make a stupid investment. When it fails you can’t admit that it was stupid, instead you will blame it on something else. It keeps you from changing what was stupid about it in the first place. If that mistake continues to happen you will repeat the same defence mechanism and become even blinder every time it happens. Or, maybe you ran a successful business in the past but times have changed and you need to adopt and learn. But you don’t, and you blame the economy, or your account. But the cold hard truth is that you are outdated and need to change.
Owning up to your faults or bad ways allows you to take responsibility. When you manage to take responsibility then you can feel that you are in charge and know what to change. That is important because then things don’t just happen to you, you presume the active role and start doing. By being more honest to oneself is crucial for improvement but also to be more confident and open. Those characteristics shape a great leader. If you are not the leader, in the best possible way, then it is irrelevant if or how you change your company, you are still the problem.
You can imagine being in an episode of “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”. In every episode British chef Gordon Ramsay comes to a restaurant that is going downhill and helps them turn around. As an impartial element he can observe the business with fresh eyes and pinpoint the problems. Always, literally in every episode some of the staff or an owner is the biggest problem. When he convinces the person in question to be honest about his or her mistakes the change becomes possible. Be your own Gordon Ramsay, or if it is too hard hire someone with experience like Premier Brains Auditors.
What to change?
Once you have made the decision to reinvent your business, you’ll need to determine which sort of change is necessary to achieve your goals.
The best way to find what needs to change is to go through your previous experience. Did you miss that one big deal? Carefully analyse your process, and find out why. Then imagine how you change your company so that would not happen again. Or maybe you are bothered with long working hours and want to spend more time with your loved ones? Then ask yourself how can I restructure my business to have more free time.
Maybe you have the right product, and you are involved in all current trends (economic and technological) and still not growing? Then you can try and analyse your employees relations and performance rates. There are a lot of guides online to read, and also very useful tools. There are numerous benefits of performance appraisal but you’ll need to find out what is your goal and what is the change you need.
Be Patient and Follow your Plan
Set up a new business plan and stick to it. Just like you are starting a new business. Figure out the Five Ws. If you answer these simple questions, the picture and your goal become much more clear. Then you can focus on realising that goal.
Who? Ask yourself “Who” is your company? Who are your customers and competitors?
What? What does your company offer and what do your customers want and need?
Where? Where Is the business happening? Where is the meeting point of sales and your customers? Should you worry about your sales location, or should you invest in a virtual one?
When? When do you do all these things, from buying to selling? When is the best time to make a switch? When you should stop the old business?
Why? Why does your company do what it does? Why do the customers need your product/service? What is the value?
Transition from the old business model into a new one can last a long time. It will feel like running two businesses at once, which it is actually. That is the period of overlapping. You don’t want to close the business completely and relaunch the new when it is ready. The thing to do is to make a fluent transition. That way you will keep your customers and your cash flow going while renovating for a new beginning. Allow time to negotiate new agreements and the slow change is better for employees also.
