Has your business model been disrupted?
If not, it will. It doesn’t matter what market you’re in, there is disruption coming.
In fact, even if you’re in a business environment that you believe is “post-disrupted,” you’re going to go through it again.
Business disruption is the norm.
You can forget all the banter about how the new business norm is slow growth. This may have been what people wanted to believe coming out of the doldrums of the last 7 years, but that’s not norm.
Norm is understanding how to survive and thrive with 24/7 business disruption going on around you.
Read this Forbes article regarding what Amazon is doing to the wholesale industry channel. This is an industry everyone felt was safe as recently as just a few years ago.
Business disruption will always occur when there is a wide amount of data that is not centralized and there are multiple levels in a supply-chain operating without the benefit of enhanced technology.
I’ll use the airline industry as an early disruptor. Remember the travel agent? They were viewed as a multiple level industry. With the airlines removing them from the equation, the airline was able to become far more sophisticated with the handling of data.
Remember banks? Sure you do, but they too are quickly fading. Why? It’s simple — there are more efficient ways to connect money with customers and a wealth of data. Voila! The rapid emergence of on-line entities that provide all of the services of a bank without being a bank.
Look at what Amazon does. They flatten the supply-chain, increase the use of value of data and better centralize it with technology.
The reason I’m writing this to you — my audience of salespeople and sales leaders — is simple.
Regardless of your business model, you have to continually ask yourself the following 3 questions:
1. What can change in the supply-chain and how can I take advantage of it?
2. What value does data bring and how can I access more to make it worth exponentially more?
3. How can technology play a bigger role in what I do?
Business disruption will continue to occur more frequently. Are you aware of the possibilities?
Copyright 2014, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.
Click on the below book cover for more info on boosting your profits!
