Entrepreneurship is by far the leading business phenomena of the 21st century. Far too many companies are founded almost every year. Some of these companies go on to challenge established giants and offer stiff competition, while some go bankrupt and close their doors before they get the chance to take off properly.
While entrepreneurship has ushered in a new era of market growth, it has also brought with it the risk of revenue losses. Besides, employees who start working at these promising firms suddenly find themselves unemployed when the company goes under.
A closer look at these failed operations points to the flaws in their business strategies. This knowledge is vital for drawing comparisons and conclusions as to why some companies perform better while others do not, and why certain companies are more resilient to shocks while others cannot withstand them.
Therefore, to make things easier for you, we have compiled the three characteristics of resilient organizations. This guide will help you see for yourself why some companies are more likely to fail, while others destined for success.
If you are starting a business of your own, this guide can help you avoid the mistakes those failed companies made. It can also help you become more resilient to economic shocks, especially if you are in a developing country where the exchange rate is prone to rapid and extreme fluctuations.
You should, however, note that these points can only go as far as offer the crux of the matter. Resiliency is about keeping abreast of the latest threats, and one of the threats that is plaguing the business world these days comes from cyberattacks.
In order to learn about how cyberattacks work and how you can play a role in making your organization more resilient against such attacks, you can enroll in the online homeland security degrees, programs that are designed to facilitate and equip you with right tools and skills to safeguard corporate memos, consumer data, and other sensitive corporate information.
1) Market understanding:
Market understanding cannot be developed overnight. There are many associated factors here which you need to understand. These include the domestic economic policies and their consequences on the markets, the public’s response to those economic policies, and the way purchasing habits differ under different scenarios.
Moreover, if you look at this from a company’s perspective, knowing how the product would perform is crucial for its further development, marketing and launch, because you cannot just risk throwing money at every other product and waiting to see how they would perform.
This is where an understanding of marketing will come in handy. It allows you to anticipate and predict public responses. It reads into the many patterns you might already be aware of and helps you meet the public’s expectations more accurately.
Therefore, one of the key characteristics of resilient companies is their market understanding. This not only helps them resist shocks better, but it helps them focus on areas that matter, subsequently achieving growth and building a loyal customer base. Their focused operations not only help them cut costs but also maximizes their efficiency.
2) Reflexivity:
Second to market understanding is reflexivity, that is considered an important characteristic of resilient companies.
If you are running a business and you know the response you are getting is not adequate yield revenue or growth for you, would you continue running it the same way or would change paths?
If you are a wise business strategist, you would most likely opt for the latter because there is no point in repeating the same mistakes again and again. Not only would you be wasting your time but you would also continue throwing money down the drain in the hopes of getting different results from tried and worn-out method.
Many established companies exhibit reflexivity when they are confronted with hurdles. If a product does not perform well, they would reflect on their strategy and read the public response, and come up with an iteration that has the potential of being well-received by their customers.
This not only helps them save up on costs but also conveys to their customers that the company caters to their demands. Therefore, knowing when and how to act in a certain situation is essential if you wish your business to thrive.
3) Innovation:
Successful businesses do not keep doing the same things over and over again. With the world more connected now, there is a high chance of a company taking your product and building a better iteration of it.
That company, therefore, has a high chance of taking over your customers by giving them something better than what you are offering. So, you need to be always in touch with the markets and the public demand to see what the public needs and whether you can deliver it to them.
If you do not have the right infrastructure for it, you need to check whether or not you would be able to build that infrastructure. Moreover, you would need to be creative with your ideas to test the waters and see if you can appeal to the public with something different.
This is how successful businesses operate. They innovate over and over again. Apple’s iPhone 4 design was widely appreciated, but that did not stop the company from changing the phone’s design with the iPhone 6.
When Apple introduced the flat UI design, people were used to its old design philosophy, but that did not stop Apple from going ahead with the new one.
Therefore, a great business practice that sustainable businesses follow is that they try to stay ahead of the market when it comes to innovation. Staying ahead of the curve this way enables these businesses to prepare for the times before they even come pass.
Conclusion:
The above-mentioned points clearly illustrate the three key characteristics of resilient businesses. It is with these characteristics that these businesses can withstand the economic shocks and the competition that are buffeted against them. During the coronavirus pandemic, these traits enabled many businesses to survive the economic recession that accompanied the serious lockdowns imposed to contain the virus. Many companies even made record profits during the period by catering to the requirements of the people who now found themselves confined to their homes and had to adjust to changing social and business dynamics.