Being Agile – Think Outside the Box and Make the Most of the Situation
Example
During the recent Auckland floods Chris Hipkins, new Prime Minister and MP for Upper Hutt did just that. He seemed to turn up everywhere offering support, moving people’s stuff out of the mud and generally being a helpful hand.
Chris used his energy and enthusiasm to turn a bad situation into an advantage.
Current big issues both effecting and facing the business environment include:
- Ongoing labour shortages
- Increased pay rates and costs of employment to retain staff
- Increased cost of living driving up inflation and interest rates
- Shortages of raw materials creating demand issues and price increases
- Climate Change
Being Agile means being able to think outside the box and being adaptable, including making compromises to deal efficiently with the current situation in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.
Labour shortages, increased employment costs and inflation are – per the latest economic forecast – thought to have peaked. Predictions are that staff shortages will ease this year from a combination of:
- Increased immigration
- Businesses closures – brought about by businesses not being able to adapt to the conditions. Business owners who are open to change and want to survive will also be impacting on the businesses of those business owners who refuse to adapt.
What can you do to learn how to think outside the box and make the most of the situation?
To be able to change, your business model must be Agile, which means that you need to:
- Be able to rapidly adapt to both the current and changing environment.
- Be aware of your capacity constraints and target your client base and target markets that offer the best returns for the least amount of effort.
- Ensure that your product / service costing models are up to date. This includes passing all increased costs into your pricing. You must retain your profitability and cashflow to survive.
- Review your processes to increase productivity and reduce duplication and waste.
If the above is outside of your skillset, then help is available. Providing the necessary assistance to achieve what needs to be done is exactly what Good Business Advisors like myself do.
When you are working in the business you are often too close, or too emotionally engaged, to identify all potential opportunities. Many of these opportunities for improvement, which often involve better and different ways of doing things, will seem obvious once they are pointed out. The obvious often only becomes the obvious when a fresh set of eyes brings it to your attention, and that is what I excel at. Into the Blue NZ Limited is an expert in business reviews and costing models.
For more information on how I can help contact john@intotheblue.co.nz or (021) 625-871.
For more information on creating or improving a business model please call John on (021) 625-871, and further more information please visit Into the Blue.
