Tags – how to tackle market uncertainty
As a manufacturer, you are likely feeling the heat from the current market uncertainty.
Uncertainty breeds doubt, and doubt can lead to paralysis when it comes to making decisions. How can you overcome this feeling and continue to run your business effectively?
Here are five tips that will help you tackle market uncertainty:
1. Develop Organisational Resilience During Good Times
Those that have built their resilience on an ongoing basis may react to system shocks by focusing on the recovery of normalcy, rather than the chaos.
Even in general, leaders assess the changing business and macroeconomic environment to see what challenges it may present to their company, what skills they will need, and how to make no-regret decisions and backup plans.
Businesses with a resilience advantage, by integrating the mentality above, cultivate alternatives, agility, and attention, allowing them to develop numerous options for achieving their objectives. In addition, they consider the resources they’ll require and start laying the groundwork for obtaining them continually.
Further, they also train their employees. And, they establish emergency procedures for company continuity and disaster recovery, as well as go through preparedness exercises with staff, drawing lessons from prior disasters.
Sadly, and inevitably still, when a negative event happens, being prepared ahead of time allows the company to react swiftly, avoiding confusion and making mistakes less likely.
2. Be Decisive
No analytics, no matter how sophisticated, can ever be perfect in predicting the future.
So, regularly, look for cracks in the business chain in the shape of favourable gaps and underutilised possibilities.
As a whole, within your organisation, individuals should be urged to generate not only out-of-the-box ideas, such as new business models, goods, and services, but also the conditions for success—for example, external coalitions, joint ventures, lobbying, and other methods that might help nudge the prospective outcomes into reality.
These exercises might be used to offer one-on-one coaching for large, “revamp the organisation” efforts. But, many successful scenario-building projects require just a few hours of effort with sticky notes or a whiteboard.
Here, the goal is to encourage an inquisitive inquiry, foster creative thinking as a regular habit, and keep it focused on a clear set of goals.
Then, the analysis of these exercises should look at each case as a whole, considering all aspects of the scenario, including financial needs, expected returns, legal and regulatory restrictions, market acceptance, and technological feasibility.
Also, it’s important to have the appropriate procedures in place and to reward employees for their efforts.
Overall, these stages foster organisational learning and instil a “what if” mentality in teams, encouraging them to consider innovative solutions as part of regular business operations.
3. Be Ready to Make Tough Calls
If the pace of business is slowing or coming to a halt in your sector, you may need to take a reduction or complete pause in your variable spends.
To begin, take a look at your technology stack. What’s mission-critical versus a “nice-to-have” software? Talk to your vendors and renegotiate rates and payment terms – anything that helps you save money in the short term.
It’s feasible that eliminating services and IT spending isn’t enough, and you may be forced to consider a staff reduction. It’s an unpleasant prospect, but one that you must accept as a business leader.
However, be realistic. If you must cut, do it.
Spending is a luxury that must be curtailed during bad times.
But, this is also an opportunity to refocus the team on what it can create organically through content production, wider distribution, inbound marketing, and improved alignment with the rest of the company. This is an opportunity to become nimble and go for a redirection of resources.
4. Identify Your Top Talents
You’ll need to experiment with new things and think outside the box. You might need different abilities than you’ve had in the past, or it’s possible that your team has been reduced, causing you to lose some skills that are still required.
Here’s your chance to put your current staff to the test – i.e., put them to work on new projects and develop their expertise. Then, see who rises up and finds innovative ways to keep things moving forward in the face of uncertainty.
In addition, look for assistance from personnel in other departments, assuming such luxury exists.
On a positive note, when things get difficult, the all-stars will come to the fore, and your future leaders will shine.
In the near term, your operational output will improve, and over time you’ll have a seasoned and enthusiastic team that can quickly capitalise when the market recovers.
5. Recognise New Opportunities
When you’re looking to expand your company, you must constantly assess and reexamine your company’s procedures. Having some bad times should not change this mentality.
However, if your customers tell you that they love what you do on a regular basis when everything is going well, it might be time to consider additional services or products that you don’t currently provide.
In all fairness, even during good times, you are better off scaling the services of clients that you love working with, instead of only looking for more business.
To learn more, get in touch with us today.
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