Change Happens - Does Your Business Change To Meet It?

"Business" is not a process, its a "service" in that your business must offer and deliver what it's buying public needs, wants and will pay for.

Change, always happening like it or not, is always impacting the "game rules" for doing that however. Change is not easy nor any fun to deal with That means seeing and proactively innovating or retooling to survive and thrive in the face of change is critical in this “service” we call “business”.

Change, with its unknowns and new rules is a  constant challenge to us and our conducting our business, is all around us. Its in innovation, on line methods that replace off line methods, software managed processes, automated systems integration. Its especially noticeable in the way we begin our sourcing and buying research via the web rather than in person.  Change and innovation, however, are not the habits we encourage in our managers. Managers are implementers – and that’s a serious problem for surviving and thriving as a business.

• If you and your company do not change and innovate, change happens anyway and the company goes away.
• Seeing indicators of change and then proactively managing so you can change. Is a process.
• Being on the lookout for changes, trends, buying slips, why a customer has left, the types of customer service requests, complaints, what sales is saying about emerging competition, new approaches, applications & solutions, less leads from your lead engines - that's the part we forget to monitor and review.
• Yet that's the part that shows us change is in process. It shows us where we need to innovate and change plus the why of doing so.

Remember, "business" is not a process, its really a "service" in that The business must offer and deliver what its buying public needs, wants and will pay for. The need for specific “services” ebb and flow and of course the “service” offered v what’s needed changes.

Proactively seeing this and managing your “services” so you are in sync with and even ahead of change isn’t as simple as obligating a % of annual revenues as required to be used  innovation for change. Boards and companies may obligate innovation money but the company still needs an innovative mentality, not a management mentality or the obligated cash will never be used properly.

Example - Innovating a faster order to shipping speed-great but if a better solution for doing what you company "sells" is emerging or the needs of your customers have changed, that "innovation" has no impact on staying in business. It fixes an issue but not the overall issue of seeing and proactively managing s
As stated,

• Being on the lookout for changes, trends, buying slips, why a customer has left, the types of customer service requests, complaints, what sales is saying about emerging competition, new approaches, applications & solutions, less leads from your lead engines - that's the part we forget to monitor and review.
• Yet that's the part that shows us change is in process. It shows us where we need to innovate and change plus the why of doing so.

Try to make a habit of paying attention to those areas. Then, lead the retooling and innovation that can keep you and your business valued, pertinent, current, market centric and ahead of the changes.

Neil Licht, CEO, Managing Change Division,  HereWeAre