Saturday, April 25, 2009

Business in a time of crisis

This article is written out of my observation of companies that are facing a tough time with the economical downturn. Before I get to the core of this article I would like you to spend a few seconds of your time to understand my definition of Business. I believe it’s “a set of different departments that are engaged in different functions differentiating the method/style in which the organization chooses to operate by.”

Below is a little summary explaining the different functions in any given business:

All these functions are somehow interlinked forming an activity we call an “Organization”. However some organizations would like to focus on the inner side of these functions, therefore create sub-functions such as; Communication department, Customer-service department, PR department, accounting department, R&D department, etc.

There are a lot of other explanations to the above functions but the one that’s most relevant to our topic today is Chris Crum’s definition of Marketing in which he says “Marketing is what drives customers to your business, and customers are what drive growth, and ultimately survival.

In a time when the face of economy is down, organizations usually try to save money by reducing operational costs and budgets. Business owners and decision makers are forced to follow this practice that is a common strategic solution until the economy is back. We at Big Bear believe that a decision like this could affect your business a lot more then protect its existence. Some of the disadvantages for a strategic decision like this are as follow:-

1. Creates space for new entry as new competitors might take this as a chance to enter the market.
2. Customers turn to your competitors products and forget yours. People will always continue to shop and once you don’t remind people of your existence, people will automatically turn to the most obvious alternative.

Marketers globally have come up with low cost and effective strategies to market products & services without needing to minimize operational activities. Targeted marketing via internet marketing or social trends are only a few of the new strategies that can “Do more with less”. A combination of various strategic marketing methods is you’re way forward as most small and medium size business today are coming to realize that marketing is not about what you have. It’s mostly about what you choose to do with what you have.