Looking Over The Precipice – PART 2

In my previous post “Looking Over The Precipice – PART 1”, I discussed that 66% of organisations have no clear strategy for innovation. In this posting, I will explain how to get behind the statistics and how you can embrace innovation to drive your organisation out of recession.

Across all market sectors, organisations have responded to the global down turn with 3 stages of response :

1. Looking Over The Precipice
2. Middle Ground
3. Coming Out

Key to this, is understanding which distinct stage your organisation has followed in response to the recession.

1. Looking Over the Precipice( aka “One Step Away From Disaster”)

Outlook :  “Battering down the hatches and weathering the storm as best we can”. Being forced to deal with the here and now, given that the future is likely to remain unclear for quite some time.
Sentiment : Loss of confidence
Financial : Collapsing share price
Workforce : Aggressive cost cutting

2. Middle Ground

Outlook : Anticipating Impact.
Sentiment : Reducing exposure to the downturn.
Financial : Managing situation very carefully
Workforce : Reducing personnel in line with turn over

3. Coming Out ( Of Recession)

Outlook : Still growing, but monitoring situation very closely. Have  a sense of energy and excitement and a core ability to manage creative change and innovation.
Sentiment: Doing ok, understand the risk. Have developed a number of scenarios and will react accordingly.
Financial : See some profitable opportunity in medium term.
Workforce : Cautious, gradual hiring. Strong investment in talent management, redeploying staff to other parts of the business during attrition cycles.

Batten Down the Hatches
With most organisations seeing a strong decline in revenues, the natural tendency has been to ride out the storm and preserve life at all costs.

Unfortunately, each successive wave has depleted the organisation of the very budget and headcount that is needs to bring reposition itself out of recession.

In this environment, the standard organisational response has been to bury its head in the sand and stop innovating.

This could n’t be further from the truth of what the organisation should be doing to maintain its market share and migrate to the “Coming Out” of recession stage.

You have to assume that everyone else is innovating period. You can only survive by innovating, else risk losing market share.

How Will Innovation Help Me ?
Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity and not a threat.

It’s all about working smarter, connecting with your customer by leveraging new channels, redesigning business processes and launching new products.

It’s about showcasing your brand and using what you have got more economically.

Only then, can you position yourself as the expert and build the opportunity, security and better future to move your organisation to the “Coming Out” phase to exit the great recession of 2009.

In my next posting “Looking Over The Precipice – PART 3″ I will explore how you can use active Risk Management to predict the future.

IAN ALDERTON
Email : ian@IanAlderton.com
Tel : +44 (0) 7702 777770

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