There’s no doubt about it – this recession has impacted almost every one of us. But some of the changes to how business is being done have been in the works for awhile. The recession has brought many of them to light and increased their impact. Companies who take the opportunity to change how they do business will come out of this downturn with a bright future.
Let’s take a look at Cisco – they’ve taken the opportunity to innovate and make strategic decisions during each of the past recessions which have brought them out stronger than before.
Over the past seven years, we have nurtured a [management approach based on] collaboration and teamwork using networked Web 2.0 technologies, which we feel will be the business model for 21st-century leaders. It has allowed us to enter two dozen [new] markets, that is now at 28—I just added two more yesterday….
I do believe very strongly that while this is the most challenging time in our careers, as business leaders, customers, and as countries, it also offers potentially the most opportunity. When you face challenges of this magnitude, with the tremendous disruption it creates for businesses, for jobs, for families, you get a willingness [from people] to change with speed you do not get in normal times. So out of this tremendous pain as a country and as a world, I believe we should focus on tremendous gain. – At Cisco, ‘Downturn’ Screams Long-Term Opportunity – BusinessWeek
Cisco has changed business as usual – now they collaborate with their customers to innovate and enter new markets – and all employees are encouraged to bring their ideas to the table instead of waiting for top-down decisions.
How can you change business as usual?
(photo by webg33k @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: economy, recession, collaboration, co-creation, business, marketing
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Your customers know what they want – or at least what they don’t want. They have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t and what types of features they’d like to see in a particular product. Usually companies base their product offerings on research conducted on focus groups or small groups of customers. But the power of the Internet allows companies to communicate with a much larger percentage of their customers (at least for most products).