How To Change a Business Strategy

Every­thing in life is in a con­stant state of change and adap­ta­tion to the present. It is the very nature of our evo­lu­tion and it leaves busi­ness­es sub­ject to fre­quent change as well. 

While busi­ness goals tend to remain the same through­out the decades, strate­gies to achieve set goals must evolve in response to tech­no­log­i­cal advances, con­sumer shifts, new mar­ket emer­gen­cies and inter­nal struc­tur­al changes. 

At least one piece of the puz­zle is always chang­ing, casu­al­ly chang­ing oth­er pieces and ren­der­ing the entire enter­prise con­tin­u­ous­ly in motion. 

The best way to approach a change in exter­nal affairs is to calm­ly adapt your busi­ness strat­e­gy to the changes. 

Calm­ly is a key­word in the insight behind evolv­ing your busi­ness strat­e­gy. Remind your­self before and amidst the recon­struc­tion that change is nat­ur­al, it is con­stant, and you can adapt your busi­ness to it to remain in the flow with­out chaos or eruption. 

Let’s dive deeper into how to go about a changing business strategy:

Groupthink

While you want to keep some mat­ters under wraps, a bit of trans­paren­cy can go a long way. Con­sid­er being hon­est with employ­ees or with man­agers about the change you are head­ing into. Ask for feed­back on struc­tur­al inef­fi­cien­cies or col­lab­o­ra­tive process­es that could shift gear. Employ­ees have a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on busi­ness oper­a­tion than you do; they see work from the ground and come face-to-face dai­ly with the parts of your busi­ness that are out­dat­ed or misplaced. 

It might be a good idea to accept feed­back, con­sid­er it, and then have anoth­er meet­ing where cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion is encour­aged to con­sid­er ways to adapt to impend­ing changes. You can also have HR over­see or run the meeting(s) to keep the con­ver­sa­tion con­struc­tive and neutral.

Inform

Inform your key play­ers about the changes you are about to make. This includes man­agers, team employ­ees and clients. Explain that a big change is com­ing soon as a reac­tion to the event or envi­ron­ment that set this change in motion. Get­ting the news of change is impor­tant to every­one, even though it is in our DNA to adapt and evolve. 

Prepar­ing investors eas­es your finan­cial nerves. Explain­ing top-down inter­nal­ly gets your team on board and moti­vat­ed to exe­cute the change. Let­ting con­sumers know in advance that busi­ness, as usu­al, will be con­duct­ed dif­fer­ent­ly gives them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be ear­ly adopters and to con­front your change like an invi­ta­tion to change with the times, too. 

Introspect

Every time you are encoun­tered with change, take a moment for com­pa­ny intro­spec­tion. Sin­cere­ly eval­u­ate your strengths and weak­ness­es to under­stand where cuts can be made, where holes can be filled, and what strengths can be exploit­ed as you cross into the new oper­at­ing ter­ri­to­ry. It is impor­tant to eval­u­ate inter­nal oper­a­tions every time you face a change because inter­nal fac­tors and syn­er­gy are in a con­stant state of evo­lu­tion, as well. 

Talk to your customers

At the end of the day, it is your cus­tomers who are leav­ing you or stand­ing by your side. Talk to them. Tell them the exter­nal world or inter­nal dynam­ics at your com­pa­ny are chang­ing. Ask if they will stay onboard through a tran­si­tion peri­od; what improve­ments could be made for a bet­ter cus­tomer expe­ri­ence; how your com­pa­ny can bet­ter adapt to the present to offer a supe­ri­or ser­vice. Make out­reach as per­son­al as pos­si­ble, meet­ing in per­son or get­ting on the phone with clients. 

Rosy Strate­gies offers resources for all areas of your busi­ness, from new devel­op­ment to automa­tion imple­men­ta­tion, dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and busi­ness strat­e­gy evo­lu­tion. If you are at a cross­roads of a change in your busi­ness and unsure about how to best pro­ceed, give us shout. We have count­less expe­ri­ence with clients need­ing to change their course of action in order to con­tin­ue achiev­ing their goals. Let us help you change your strat­e­gy to keep reach­ing for your goals, too.