Survive, Exploit, Disrupt E-Book

Peter Steidl

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 237

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Recessions -- there may not be anything we can do to stop them, but we have plenty of choices when it comes to our response. During a recession too much time can be spent trying to guess what impact it may have, while too little time is spent exploring the strategic options available. Survive, Exploit, Disrupt addresses the need for companies to shift their strategic thinking during an economic downturn. As trends change and consumer behaviour becomes less predictable, companies that triumph over economic downturn fall into three categories: survivors, exploiters and disrupters. This book shows executives how to navigate their way through the many challenges a recession represents for their business, and capitalise on the opportunities these periods of upheaval present. Inside you'll discover: * the drivers of change during a recession * how to adapt to recessionary periods * how to exploit growth opportunities and identify disruptive opportunities * specific actions you can take to survive a recession. The result is a solid basis for recession-proof strategy that companies can implement to ensure that they survive the tough times.

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgements

A philosophical introduction to a hard-edged topic

Part I: Strategic considerations

Chapter 1: Challenges and opportunities

The fallacy of spending more

If outspending is not the answer, what is?

How effective is your business concept?

Chapter 2: The myth of spending your way out of a recession

Chapter 3: Survivor: aligning marketing strategies with the emerging operating environment

Understanding the scale and scope of change

Strategies for dealing with changes in habitual buying

Strategies for dealing with changes in trade-off decisions

A final word

Chapter 4: Exploiter: strategies that deliver incremental, lumpy growth

Exploiting differences

Taking a strategic approach to identifying opportunities to exploit

Further actions for exploiters

Chapter 5: Disrupter: reinventing the business

Opportunities in a recession

What about the business concept?

Business or marketing concept innovation?

Chapter 6: Moving into action mode

Part II: Action guidelines

Chapter 7: Actions for survivors

Action 1: build an early warning system

Action 2: conduct a touchpoint audit

Action 3: use brand vision archetypes to focus your strategy

Chapter 8: Actions for exploiters

Action 1: use speed and flexibility to beat scale

Action 2: establish a strategy review board

Action 3: explore icon brand opportunities

Chapter 9: Actions for disrupters

Action 1: develop scenarios of the future

Action 2: explore value-chain opportunities

Conclusion

Appendix: brand vision archetypes: a brand is an experience, not a set of descriptive attributes

Recommended reading

Index

First published 2009 by

John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

42 McDougall Street, Milton Qld 4064

Office also in Melbourne

Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro 11.5/14.5pt

© Peter Steidl 2009

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Author: Steidl, Peter.

Title: Survive, exploit, disrupt: action guidelines for marketing in a recession / Peter Steidl.

ISBN: 9781742169378 (pbk.)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Marketing — Management.

Recessions.

Success in business.

Dewey number: 658.8

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Cover image © Jose Luis Alves, 2009. Used under license from Shutterstock.com

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based upon the information in this publication.

Acknowledgements

In management time is of the essence and this principle certainly applies to writing, editing and publishing a book that deals with a recessionary period.

As with so many things in life, the project came about almost by accident. As the recession became a reality in many countries around the world we at Mindshare discussed publishing a series of books that would address high-interest topics, exploring fresh thinking and new practices. Our focus had been on the revitalisation of mature brands, a topic of great interest to many companies. With the recession becoming the foremost concern of senior executives, our focus shifted to this challenge and, more specifically, to what companies could do not only to survive, but capitalise on the massive change such a period brings.

Then a rapid succession of events took place that led to this book: John Wiley & Sons became our publisher; Raja Kanniappan, Group M’s CFO Asia-Pacific, accepted the chairmanship of the editorial board; Mindshare allowed me to spend four weeks focusing entirely on writing; and a number of individuals contributed in a variety of ways.

I would like to acknowledge with gratitude Vija Blumbergs who has tirelessly reviewed early drafts and provided advice on structure and focus, while also eliminating the many Austrianisms I still manage to embed in my writing. Professor Peter McDonald, Managing Director of the Agency Register, provided a number of specific suggestions that contributed to shaping the final product. My colleague Valerie Lim provided the Dove case example used in the section on icon brands.

Raja deserves a big thank you for making time to support this initiative when, at the same time, he has to deal with a multitude of developments in the Asia–Pacific region that demand his full attention. John Petropoulos and Mark McCraith, both senior Mindshare executives, allowed me to dedicate time to write this book and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. And, importantly, I want to thank my publisher, Katherine Drew, who championed the project, and the rest of the team at John Wiley & Sons.

It is of particular satisfaction to serve as the first author in the new Mindshare Strategy. Applied series, published by John Wiley & Sons. Management is about managing change and given the rapidly changing environment, many executives find that short-term, quarterly results and day-to-day challenges absorb so much of their day that it is difficult to set time aside to think about broader, strategic issues. The Mindshare Strategy. Applied series aims to provide management with easy-to-read, focused advice addressing some of the major challenges they face. This book is an attempt to deliver on this promise. I hope I have succeeded and thank all those who have helped me on the way.

Dr Peter Steidl

February 2009

A philosophical introduction to a hard-edged topic

This is the joy of management: your relentless efforts, your decisions and the guidance you give to others can create a shared spirit, enjoyment, belonging, satisfaction and wealth. Management is not about the status quo. It is about creation and creative destruction. As such, it can be said to be an instrument of evolution — not in the elegant and unknowable yet seemingly purposeful way nature exercises evolution, but in the clumsy and yet strangely satisfying way we try to realise the imperfect constructions conceived by our limited minds: processes, systems, tools, ideas, inventions, technologies, all brought together in what we call businesses and economies.

Then a recession strikes.

In all likelihood we have caused it because, the truth be told, we actually have no idea how our fantastic constructions — from global financial markets to economic treaties — really work. The recession blows through and demolishes our house of cards, weeding out some of our excesses, bad ideas and silly concepts. By doing so, it makes room for new developments, new ideas to grow and gather pace, new leaders, new experiences and, undoubtedly, more of these wonderfully inadequate concepts and constructions we don’t actually understand, laying a solid foundation for another recession to visit before too long.

It follows that a recession is not a time to feel sorry for ourselves. It is not a time to turn inward, to let frustration rise or the joy of management die. It is simply a period that will test executives and policy makers, governments and even the average person on the street (if he or she really exists). In fact, for many executives a recession is the most significant challenge they will experience during their professional life. Let’s face it, it is not that difficult to manage during periods of growth, when poor decisions and inefficiencies are masked by growing revenue pools. But a recession — a different story altogether!

As always in life, some will be natural winners because they have found a career in an industry that will benefit from a recession or, by mere chance, have taken actions that will see them well prepared going into a recessionary period. But many will feel the pressure of a seemingly shrinking world that renders useless the grand strategies that looked so promising apparently only yesterday. Day-to-day emergencies start to consume the executive and relentless change in the operating environment demands attention until exhaustion extinguishes any further thought.

Few have foreseen this recession and taken appropriate actions. Those who did are assured of our total admiration. Most saw some of the early signs, but were nevertheless caught unprepared for the massive changes we saw play out at the end of 2008. This is a global event and it is already affecting most industry sectors. Few companies will escape the impact of what is rattling towards us, moving faster than a freight train.

So, what is one to do?

Recently, sitting on the balcony of a country guest house, I thought of the wonderful clarity the concept of karma and dharma offers us: the recession is our karma, but our dharma is how we decide to deal with it. We are never without choices (unless restrained by the extreme situations that wars, prisons and other calamities may bring). The point is that we need to see our karma as a given and focus on how we deal with it, rather than investing energy into frustration, anxiety or anger.

With this in mind I started to write this book. I don’t focus on why there is a recession, nor do I attempt to guess how it may evolve. Rather, my focus is entirely on what strategies and actions an executive could usefully consider to deal with such an unwelcome visitor. In an effort to increase the relevance of the material covered I have divided the book into two parts and focused on strategies and actions for survivors, exploiters and disrupters. To some extent this is, of course, an arbitrary way of determining the usefulness of various strategies and actions.

In fact, all companies should ensure that they adjust their strategies and work practices, implementing survivor strategies. However, only some will have the resources and ambitions to pursue the often significant opportunities a time of dramatic change brings.

Even more arbitrary is my use of the term ‘recession’ which I use interchangeably with ‘recessionary period’. The truth is that it doesn’t really matter if a country goes through a technical recession or a recessionary period. The challenges companies and consumers will experience are similar and demand similar responses.

Given that the most significant changes are likely to occur in the market and competitive environment, this book naturally has a marketing focus. However, the principles and strategies put forward can often be adapted quite easily to the corporate or business level.

I hope this book will become a useful catalyst for discussion and exploration, stimulating thinking when executives deal with the problems a recession will bring, while also identifying some of the opportunities that surface in a time of massive change.

Part I

Strategic considerations

In this first part generic strategies for surviving a recession are examined. These are core strategic options that can be explored, adapted and implemented for the benefit of the company. The first set of strategic options falls into the survivor category. The objective is to align marketing strategies with the rapidly changing environment. To do this effectively, we have to first understand the drivers of change.

What we find in a recessionary period is that consumers evaluate many of the purchases that were habitual and when making purchase decisions they often adjust the trade-offs they make. This is not a one-off adjustment, but rather as the recession unfolds consumers adjust their purchasing behaviour again and again. This means that marketers have to keep track of these changes and adjust their strategies to align them with the changing marketplace. Given the fluidity of the situation, these adjustments have to be made frequently, if not continuously.

Aligning marketing strategies with the changing environment is not optional. All companies should attempt to do that. However, only some companies will have the financial strength and ambition to identify and exploit the incremental, lumpy growth opportunities that always surface during a period of massive change. Those that do are exploiters — companies that build flexibility and speed allowing them to reap the benefits of their competitors’ inability to identify and exploit such opportunities.

Finally, I focus on the identification of disruptive opportunities, including business or marketing concept innovation. While not for everyone, there are great opportunities in a recession to redefine the marketing concept and implement change on a scale that is rarely acceptable during times of growth and prosperity.

While it is useful to explore strategic issues and imperatives, it is clear that every company will need to develop a unique strategy, taking its financial, market and competitive position into account. To help translate the generic strategies presented into actionable, individual strategies, I present a number of specific initiatives marketers could consider in the second part of the book.

Chapter 1

Challenges and opportunities

In many ways it doesn’t really matter whether we experience a recession in a technical sense (that is, two consecutive quarters with negative economic growth) or simply a recessionary period (that is, a significant economic downturn that is just shy of a technical recession). The truth is, our world has already started to change and it is of critical importance for marketers to align their strategies with the new, rapidly emerging operating environment.