Make Good Choices

positions. They are the blue-chip – large, wellestablished, and financially-sound with excellent reputations. I wonder if these qualities alone will be enough going forward?

Wraising kids and empowering employees, the best thing you can hope for is that they do the right thing. The right thing is usually determined by the culture of a home or office, as well as standards of a community or nation. Many times I have said to my kids, “Make good choices!” They knew what I meant! And, it works in the workplace, too, usually emphasized around employee review time.

Companies make choices too, from product offerings to marketing campaigns to responses to emerging ideas to technology. What happens as a business or corporation makes a choice? It depends. Sometimes nothing, and yet sometimes, everything. Just Google “boycotts” to remind yourself of news that has not faired well for people and brands. Unfortunately for some, the result of a choice wasn’t known until public sentiment starts chattering.

In his book, How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything ... in Business (and in Life), Dov Seidman says, “Great companies and leaders today know that their reputational capital is as valuable to their success as their physical capital.” In fact, the global online reputation management services market size was valued at 199.14 million in U.S. dollars in 2021 and is expected to reach 440.11 million by 2027.

One survey shows that 87% of consumers read online reviews. Nearly 94% say that a negative online review has convinced them to avoid a business. I use them when searching for businesses or products.

The impact of a company’s choices on both sides, buyer and seller, influences and upholds all transactional relationships, whether they are vendors or direct to consumer.

There are industry legacy companies who have large marketshare and hold dominant

As I have visited in industry expositions this year, I have talked with emerging companies offering new choices, many of them are sustainability-driven. Most say their concept was driven by the current gaps in the marketplace. So they developed it, like CiCLO® CEO Andrea Ferris, whom I interview on page 10.

Companies in the Medical and Surgical space, with stories on pages 14 and 26, also are working their way through varying change.

The new consumer is calling for more than a product. They want: Sustainability. Transparency. Equity. Brands that align with them personally. They want it affordably and with ease of access. No longer is a consumer adapting to transactional exchanges the way a company wants to do them. They want a company to adapt to them. McKinsey & Company says, “Seventy-one percent of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. And seventy-six percent get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.”

TheWorldCounts.com estimates that the size of the consumer class is expected to increase to 5.6 billion people in 2030 meaning that almost 4 billion people more than in 2010 will have the resources to buy products and services beyond their basic needs. I would assume many will want customized buying experiences ... and supply chain transparency.

One Deloitte study says, “The coming decade will see an exponential surge in personal choice and an accelerated shift from a traditional supply-driven model to one that is demand-driven.” Many new companies are entering this space, with subscription services.

I don’t have any answers. It will be interesting to see how it all comes about.

Caryn Smith Chief Content Officer & Publisher, INDA Media, IFJ

GUIDE Joan Oakley CHINA Zhang Xiaohua

EUROPE & INDIA Sabine Dussey ITALY Ferruccio & Filippo Silvera UNITED STATES Frank Strazzulla

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