Communication - Key to Business Strategy

Right around the planning cycle for next year, one question starts to bother me - how often do we discuss the strategic direction that we are setting for our business, once the planning cycle is over? Why is that?

1. Is senior management not crafting/revisiting the strategic road-map that is well understood? 
   
2. Is middle management not in-tune with the strategic impact their roles are making on the company’s bottom-line? 
   
3. Or, is it a matter of not communicating the vision, that can be permeated through the organization?

I believe there is an element of all of the above. Here, I want to call out a certain lack of communication that is rampant in most organizations. Let's look at the business reviews, for instance, that are conducted weekly, monthly, etc. Are these backward looking or forward looking? Is there enough element of the latter for all to see? The answer in most cases is "no" or "not enough." 

• There are goals and plans in place for the current and the upcoming year, but how often are they reinforced? 
• How frequently, do we meet to take a stock of business progress and how it aligns with the plan we had set for ourselves? 
• What are the new projects, competitive landscape, consumer needs, operational efficiency improvements, etc., that need more attention than was envisaged at the planning stages?

If these are not addressed and collectively communicated to the teams, there will always be a certain degree of dissatisfaction and lack of coherence  among the troops. What we do during the year ought to be calibrated against the plan we built, but more importantly, the plan we revise as we go. Management cadre should take note!

3 C’s of Consumer Centricity

Consumer-centric organizations are known to do all they can to engage with their customers and proactively cater to their needs. Often these will include product/service updates, social communications, systems to support consumer-centric strategies, etc. However, it is easy to feel burdened with multi-directional pulls on your consumer-centric strategy as tactical urgencies evolve in any business cycle. Keeping a framework of key consumer touch points is imperative in such situations to stay focused and continue to deliver on the promise of better than excellent engagement. I categorize these core consumer touch points into 3 areas – the 3 C’s of Consumer Centricity.

1. Content – what does a consumer see about your brand, products, services? Are you developing content that clearly communicates and reinforces the value of your products and services? Does this content remind the consumer how valuable their relationship is to the brand and vice-versa? Whether a consumer is using your products or not, we need to evolve our content strategy such that it caters to consumer need for information, before and after they make a purchase decision, and at the time of purchase, you will typically get the nod.
2. Choice – Do we offer choice in our products and services? Is our product strategy in-tune with the evolving market dynamics, namely, technological changes, consumer usage behaviors, market expectations, etc.? After we have successfully attracted consumer attention, we need to ensure we are ready to live up to the promise – great product and service. As and when consumers mature and place their trust in your brand, you need to be able to offer a portfolio that goes beyond the core product(s) and allows the customer to strengthen the bond.
3. Community – Speaking of bonding with brand, what better way than to draw customers into your community. Do you have a community that not only caters to customer queries, but also, provides valuable information to enhance your products/services? Social revolution has brought about a radical shift in organizations’ communications tactics, as to how frequently and what do consumers need to know. We need to proactively build this into our marketing strategy and invest in right resources to maintain it and keep it current. 

As we all know, consumer life-cycle starts well before they become our customers, and continues well beyond their first purchase. The 3 C’s provide a marketer’s view into this life-cycle and by creating the planning tools within this framework may just help simplify analysis, refine your marketing/communications strategies, maximize ROIs and contribute to your maturing as a consumer-centric organization.

Sustaining Growth ... with Strategic Planning Leadership

The information age we live in has one very significant impact on the business environment – consumer tastes and needs are continually evolving. 

The sophistication of products and services we consume is a result of not only the innovation, but also availability of technology at consumer level. Think of all the advances in online content, Internet access, consumer devices, home gadgets, transportation - the list goes on.

The common theme is that at each stage of innovation, new value is being created by meeting new customer needs as the perceived value of the previous feature was reduced. 

How do organizations stay competitive in such evolving landscape?

Firstly, organizations will need to manage fatigue of their product/service and stay relevant in customers' minds. Here I am talking about maintaining certain freshness about your product. Be it via, new features, pricing, branding, value-added services, customer support or even operations.

Secondly, organizations need to create a culture where adapting to market/industry changes becomes a measures of success. Appropriate data management, reporting, operational flexibility and outward focus will be needed to ensure such changes are being taken into account at every decision-making stage.

Strategic planners should hence be guiding their organizations by; factoring in the evolving consumer need, quantifying the “loss” in current products/services and managing the transition to the next feature set that will drive the portfolio growth. Organizations most aligned with evolving consumer needs will have the luxury of staying viable, charging a premium for their innovation, moving into new customer segments and retaining the current ones.

Management Lessons for Growing Revenue

Adding incremental revenue to core products is imperative for expanding the revenue base, which can be achieved by adding value-added services that are relevant to the customer base. 

In a subscription environment of telecommunications world, these value-added services enhance customers’ connected world. This approach relies on providing customers with viable products that are in harmony with the core business offering. I have spoken about bundling but what makes it a successful strategy largely depends on management focus on the following:

1. Ideation (identify complementing products that enhance your core service experience)
2. Preparedness (invest in Operational capability and develop internal resources such that bundled products and/or services are integrated with the systems thereby enabling a seamless consumer-facing experience)
3. Selling (start thinking Big Data and customer analytics to understand and segment your customers for the products identified above; AND Sales Effectiveness to encourage sales channels and also monitor for "quality" customer acquisition)

Intuitive, yet the organizations often fail to implement all 3 at once. A coherent strategy with equal emphasis on "Ideation, Preparedness and Selling" will build a lasting skill-set within the organization and will invariably help build an excellent customer experience. These are the keys to sustaining growth and realizing the full potential of strategic shifts that markets demand.

What pays more – customer acquisition or customer retention?

This is not an “either/or” question, rather an attempt to raise an organization-wide awareness and debate on the topic, which appears to be mostly confined within the marketing organizations.

However, if I had to pick one, I'd say invest in nurturing the customers you already have. In my experience, organizations spend way too much on acquisition and tend to treat retention as secondary - as long as net keeps growing, the numbers will (likely) be met.

Why nurture the current customers? They have already made the choice, are paying your bills and stay because they like the service. However, as the customer base grows, there is often the challenge of scaling the infrastructure to continue to maintain the service levels. To keep the customers happy, you need to invest in systems and infrastructure that support the quality of service the customers expect. This may include IT systems, new talent, sales policies, user experience design, etc.; whatever is needed to keep up with the scale of growing customers and their expectations. 

If you can deliver the high standards of service consistently, you will be noticed. We probably offered perks and incentives to bring the new customers in, but with the quality service standards in place, we will continue to ensure that new customers don’t feel slighted, when the initial euphoria of signing-up and “honeymoon” period (free this and that for acquisition) is over.

Also, if you are considering product changes and/or new offerings to expand the services portfolio, the current customers can provide valuable market research insights, if approached in a right way. In addition, customers will start to trust the brand and, in turn, may reward you with buying your other products and services. That’s when we start to realize the full potential of our customer base and gain a greater share of their wallet. So, here are the top 5 reasons to nurture the current customers.

1. They are here and paying the bills
2. They can help improve your products and services
3. They will be more inclined to buy your other “value-added” services
4. They can provide precious market insights for your strategic programs
5. They are and/or will advocate your brand at no cost to you

The ROI of investing in systems to sustain high service standards, as promised in the marketing material, will quickly start to show. Growth will then not be a one-dimensional look into how well your acquisition efforts are performing.