Don’t just survive the economic crisis, profit from it - like IKEA did.
Swedish furniture store IKEA probably provides one of the best examples of dealing with crises. The company started out as a mail-order firm, but built its first brick and mortar store when competition became tough in the mail-order furniture business. Then a fire came along, and they had to build bigger and more profitable stores. Next, IKEA had a supplier boycott so they responded by designing and manufacturing their own furniture. Finally, they had to deal with their inability to staff their stores with a trained sales force. In answer to this crisis, they developed the self-service portion of their stores with huge success. Obviously, IKEA has used each of its crises as valuable opportunities to reshape itself in an improved model. There are many areas of your business that you can review now in order to ensure that you are set for the future. Obviously, the first is to ask yourself if you have the right staff in each of your critical positions. Sometimes it helps to seek advice here as most entrepreneurs have a hard time seeing real flaws and limitations in their staff, especially if they have been with them a long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment