Upturns and downturns have always been with us. For a lot of people though, this will be their first recession and they are understandably concerned. But why look on the bleak side? Recessions are not all bad, they can be very useful; like a particularly hard winter they tend to remove all sorts of parasites:
- companies and managers who make customer promises they can not keep
- sales organisations masquerading as marketing organisations
- mediocre companies who have eked a living (up to now) with undifferentiated offers, to undifferentiated markets and been just too lazy to change
- short term businesses that believe (are really convinced) that profits come first and customers second.
This recession looks like being even better than the last – we could be facing structural change this time so that normal service will not be resumed when its all over.
It is no good just worrying about what might happen, after such a long party, you can be sure that this hangover will be memorable. Equally, there is just no point following all the lemmings with their ‘patent cures’:
- cut costs
- pull in the horns
- beat up the sales force to sell more
- everybody work harder
- cut costs again.
This recession will demand, not only that you do things differently, but probably do different things. You will need to think through:
- what you are doing now
- what the different markets might want in and after the recession
- how you can find out
- what you can do to start re-aligning your organisation now – before the markets change.
Should you want to hear more about this attend our next evening seminar. Details can be found at:
http://www.management.soton.ac.uk/events/evening-seminar-marketing-in-the-downturn.php
