A superior internal capacity provides a strong platform for market competitiveness. This is where business sustainability gains a foothold. You need to ask CEOs and founders who have sustainably run a business for at least a decade what it takes to stay in the game. A lot, you can bet.
The percentage of business failures continues to expand due to increasing volatility in the operating environments. Tracking the performances of new businesses under 5 years, Shopify revealed that 31.3 per cent fail in the second year. The failure rate climbed to 37.9 per cent in the third year. By the fifth year, the failure rate increased to 48 per cent.
The increasing business failure indicator isn’t a mood board to scare new entrants from mounting a challenge. It isn’t a tale of woes to hold ambitious young people from pursuing the dreams of starting a business. It is a cautionary note on what to expect – and a call to prepare for the challenge of building, running and sustaining a business. Hope that sounds nice.
The question, therefore, is what does it take to sustain a business for the long term? Let’s dive right into it. The answer is to prioritise your assets. What are your assets, then? What do you do with them?
- 1. Customers, prioritise them – The customers are your business lifeline. If you lose them, you won’t stay in business for long. If you grow them, you can start dreaming of a long market ride. While customers won’t just come rushing into your funnel like blind fleas, you need to attract them by being sensitive to their current needs and paying attention to their aspirations. Get that? It isn’t enough to conceive, develop and distribute a product that suits consumers’ current needs. If you operate on that level for too long, competition will match up and eat into your customer base. You must take your customers on a journey, by innovating consistently to move them from where they are to where they want to be. Customer retention is a never-ending journey that involves being a step ahead of the market.
- 2. Talents, work with them – A business is as competitive and strong as its talent base. It is like in sports games. The most inspired, coordinated and talented teams will have an advantage. Seriously, your business will be competing with other businesses for a quantified pool of consumers. Your ability to maintain consistent market lead could be down to the talent of your team at providing exceptional services at the level of product conception, production, marketing, sales and relationship. If one business does that better, it will show in market performance.
- 3. Efficient Systems and Processes, build one – Having an excellent talent base isn’t enough. Streamlining operations to help the team maximise productivity and providing an environment where they can flourish and thrive will serve as a boost to output. Don’t let internal bureaucracy or management bottlenecks harm team operations. Neither should allow room toxicity to take root in the work environment. Build a structure that facilitates collaboration, cooperation, contribution and co-creation among units. It is like smoothening the pipelines to prevent blockage to the free flow of value content.
- 4. Your Reputation, protect it with all you‘ve got – A positive perception of your brand or products in the marketplace will foster trust. This is why you guide your reputation jealously. There exists a ‘market assembly’, quite different from the usual consumer protection assembly. It isn’t coordinated. It isn’t entrenched in any policy document or constitution. This ‘assembly’ is a viral word of mouth. It spreads like fire. It can build a brand. It can also kill a brand. It is down to brand integrity and willingness to keep to its brand contract and promise. It is to offer products that meet the prescription on the labels. It is to offer value for money. It is to be humane.
There are more assets you need to build and put to use. Running a successful business for the long term should be your goal. You don’t want to waste the energy, the funds, and the drive behind the conception of a business idea as intense as it can be. Protect your assets. It is worth all the currency in a million wallet.
