How to Future Proof Your Business

4 Proven Strategies For A Long Lasting Business

By Harshal Katre

LOT OF BUSINESS HAD TO EITHER CHANGE THE

WAY THEY WORK OR

SHUT DOWN DUE TO THESE FAST CHANGING

ENVIRONMENT. THIS

BRINGS US TO AN IMPORTANT QUESTION CAN WE FUTURE PROOF OUR BUSINESS CAN WE INCREASE THE CHANCES OF BUSINESS SURVIVAL

We can’t predict the future but we can de nitely prepare our business to face unforeseen challenges. Here is a list of 4 strategies that can help you to future proof your business.

1)DON’T DEPEND ON ONE PART OF YOUR BUSINESS FOR COMPLETE SUCCESS

Most companies achieve success with just one great product. It could be for a niche market or a mass market audience. Even if its very popular and responsible for generating almost entire chunk of the total revenue, you must think about other ways to diversify your product portfolio. This strategy might contradict with the common business advise of focusing only on one area of your business. However, in order to increase your chances for survival, you must reduce your dependence on one part of your business. When TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) restricted the bulk SMS limit, lot of SMS marketing companies suddenly went out of business. So, to future proof your business, you must create a diversi ed product portfolio.

2)RETHINK YOUR PAST STRATEGIES THAT MAY FAIL TO ENGAGE NEW CUSTOMERS

I’ve read it somewhere that “What got you here, won’t take you there”. This simply means that the strategies that you used to acquire existing base of customers may not be useful to acquire new customers in future. For example, a lot of businesses depend on print advertisements to acquire customers. With the rise of social media and new avenues like ‘Search Engine Marketing’ and ‘Inbound Marketing’, things are going to change for sure. Your old strategies will no longer work and you might struggle to acquire new customers if your don’t adopt to new ways.

3)PREDICT THE FUTURE DEMANDS TODAY

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked. So, your customers can’t always tell you what they want, you have to anticipate it. This needs some imagination and experience with the trends of industry you work in.

4)IDENTIFY & START MANAGING RISKS

You won’t be able to predict the problems that might occur in future but you can certainly take some steps to better prepare yourself. irst, we need to nd the risks or possible point of failures for our business. These risks could be in areas like people, system or business processes, legal compliance, data security, etc.

If you are depending too much on a single person, vendor or a small group of people for the success of your business, then you might face big problems in future when these people are not around.