The Commercial Modular Building Blog

Most businesses have quickly caught on to the fact that a well-functioning website is crucial to prosperity in this day and age. But why is this necessary and how do you use the Internet to its full potential?

First of all, just about everyone is on the Internet, everyday, looking for information. Every business looking to grow needs to tap into this constant flow of traffic and direct those interested to their product.

Businesses used to rely on physical signs with flashy colors, mailable advertisements, magazine ads, televisions spots, and so on. Basically, wherever information can travel, businesses need to have a presence so that people are aware of them.

Now, the Internet is the primary avenue where information travels, and the more prospective customers businesses can get the attention of, the better the sales.

There are many ways to do this.  Of course, you have probably heard many of these tips before, as many of them have all become conventional knowledge in the business world, but we’ll repeat them anyway, just to be sure.

First of all, it helps to have a well-designed (but not overly complicated) and user-friendly website. When a customer comes to your site looking for a product, you better be sure the product is easy to find and they can get all the information they need. There are many websites out there, and it is much easier clicking over to the next competing website than calling for information.

Second, make sure to have plenty of text on your site that is geared to optimize SEO results. You will want your site easy to find on engines like Google and Bing. Be aware that these engines are always updating their search algorithms, as they are competing with each other for the position of highest quality search engine. So you’ll have to keep up with all of the latest optimization trends.

Third, take advantage of Facebook and Twitter to network with and maintain relationships with your customers. The more you interact with and respond to your customers individual needs, the better off everyone is.  Try coupons and sales and posting useful information; make it worthwhile for your customers to keep in touch.

Finally, consider smart phone and ipad compatibility versions of your website. Many customers will use these devices regularly to browse for their convenience, and the more of the market you capture, the better!

Keep these tips in mind to better increase your presence on the Internet (therefore increasing your presence in a greater number of minds of consumers). Remember, the work is never done since trends are always changing. Keeping these things in mind will help increase your sales and keep your company growing.

Companies that adapt to the new economy have to innovate and slim down.

We understand pretty well now that today’s global economy is fast-paced and highly competitive. Many CEOs are asking themselves what they need to do to survive in this new, ever-changing global marketplace in the face of an ongoing recession. We’ve talked about what successful companies are doing to adapt: preparing for change, investing in green energy, branding…now I want to talk about the final two attributes that make today’s businesses adaptable and successful in this economy: the ability to innovate and slim down processes for maximum efficiency.

The necessity of innovation 

In today’s global economy, it is highly necessary for businesses to make innovation one of their dominant philosophies and to take measures in carrying out innovation on a practical level, which relates back to the article in which I stressed the need for businesses to be change-ready.

 The market is constantly changing, and very rapidly, with the incredible speed and availability of information. New competition is entering the marketplace all the time and this competition is constantly offering new ideas, taking advantage of previously untapped and unrealized consumer power. Technology is constantly changing as well, posing new problems and providing new marketable solutions.

The highly adaptive companies that are surviving are the companies that are constantly innovating to keep up with the market.

Innovation itself can pertain to technology, product ideas, marketing, or even the organization of the company. It doesn’t simply have to be about coming up with some new gadget or style, it could just mean restructuring the company as a whole or radically altering a company’s image.

Innovative companies are best able to remain relevant and appealing…and thus successful.

On slimming down

I approach the topic of slimming down with caution, especially when coupling the topic with the topic of innovation.

One of the main barriers to innovation is when a company insists on efficiency and profit-making ability as opposed to nurturing innovation and taking risks. Slimming down business processes can go two ways: either you make your processes more efficient and more effective, or you halt innovation and suffer for it.

Adaptive companies can restructure their processes and trim unnecessary waste in order to become more efficient, but they must also take care not to stifle much-needed innovation, and they must not be afraid to take risks either.

The optimal strategy is striking a balance between lean business processes and bold innovation. Not easy to do, but the successful companies will keep in mind both elements.

Conclusion

We’ve seen that the new economy poses quite a challenge for businesses. But with challenge comes innovation and change, and the emerging victors will be stronger and more successful than ever. To come out on top of the competition, it takes a business that can adapt and pursue bold new ideas, while taking advantage of existing methods and infrastructure to keep moving.

Branding

Branding has become an increasingly important practice in the new economy. As the global marketplace becomes increasingly crowded and competitive, it becomes necessary for a business to distinguish itself and develop a lasting consumer following. Because of the importance of developing a good brand, branding itself has become a highly involved science.

Today, the process of building a brand involves coming up with an appropriate name, color scheme, a possible symbol, slogan, and then marketing all of this not only to consumers but to the company’s employees themselves. Today’s successful brand is not just a name with some pleasant imagery; it is a culture, a way of life.

Sounds pretty involved, right? It sure is. Businesses spend big bucks on consumer research, figuring out what demographics to target and what makes those demographics tick. They then spend big bucks building brands that will connect with their desired demographics. After that they spend some more big bucks marketing their brands and nurturing and sculpting their brands into something distinct.  So is it all worth it?

Well, for starters, today’s most successful companies have built distinct brand names. Think of giants like Starbucks, McDonalds, or Nike. They have universally identifiable brands that can perpetuate their own cultures. Think of Apple’s products. Apple hardware has its own aesthetics that are immediately recognizable and completely different from everything else. A huge body of consumers identify with Apple’s products because of their slick appearance and air of elegance. Consumers identify with Apple on an ideological level. Owning an Apple product becomes part of that consumer’s identity. The consumer will defend that brand if they are taken care of. If a consumer identifies with a brand that deeply, that consumer is going to be loyal for life, as long as the company is still around and doesn’t do anything stupid or terrible. That is a powerful notion and essential in a competitive economy.

Now earlier I talked about how rapidly today’s marketplace landscape is changing. A brand will serve as a sort of anchorpoint for a changing company. A company’s product can change visually, or different features can come out or phase out of existence. A company could put out a completely different product altogether, or change the way it does business, but with that established brand, the consumer will continue to be loyal to the company, no matter what changes it goes through (as long as the company has been keeping up its side of the bargain and remaining true to its fundamental ideals of course!). With a brand, a company doesn’t have to start all over in marketing every time they change up their products.

Am I suggesting it is necessary to get as involved in building a brand as today’s business giants to survive in today’s economy? No of course not. However, it is important to understand the power of brands and why the big guys pay so much attention to them. Engaging in branding (whether committing to the full blown science or just creating a brand name to slap on a product) is one of the major tools a company can employ in adapting to and surviving in today’s economy. A brand is a way for a company to stand out in the crowded marketplace and gain loyal consumers.

In the last post of this series, I will go over the last two ways a company can survive in the new economy: innovate and slim down.

Flexible, Agile Businesses

In previous posts, I have beaten the notion of the necessity of change into the ground. So in this post, I am going to talk about it some more! However, this time I will relate it to survival in the new economy.

What characterizes our modern economy? Well, we are increasingly doing business on a global scale. The strongest companies in the US are growing and expanding their operations into other regions, such as Asia and Europe. Then, we see strong companies in regions such as Asia and Europe expand into our region and do business here. New competition is arising from different places in the world every day. With new competition, new ideas, and new innovations come changes in the market landscape and the way we do business. The changes we make in response to the changing market affect the market back and our competition as well and so this feedback mechanism continues back and forth.

But what’s the big deal? Hasn’t this always been the nature of competition? And hasn’t global commerce been around for a while?

To an extent, yes, global commerce has been around for quite some time, and we have seen these competitive behaviors since the dawn of competition. But what is different today is the extent of the global market and how fast information travels.

In the past, businesses were confined to the regions they did business in and traded goods worldwide. Now, businesses have a more pervasive presence worldwide, which affects respective economies and even cultures in a new way.

With the rapid information transfer that the internet allows, market activity has become faster and denser. Research can be done quicker and efforts can be coordinated instantly. What all of this results in is a highly volatile, ever-changing market to do business in. New innovations pop up all the time. Advances in technology change the market environment over night.

To survive, today’s businesses have to adapt to all of these changes and leverage the changing market conditions in order to attract more consumers and increase revenue. A changing market calls for changing businesses.

Businesses that are flexible are going to be the businesses that can change when the market takes a sudden turn. Flexible businesses have plans for reorganization. They also encourage employees to innovate and try new things whenever possible. They make change their policy.

I’ve talked about this before, but building with modular construction allows a business to have change-ready facilities. If a business needs a new workspace to begin working on smart phone applications, or a new computer room for social media marketing experts, that business will be able to expand upon their existing facilities without necessitating disruptive construction. New technologies require new workspaces to produce the latest product on the market. A smart business has to be ready for whatever is around the corner so they can be among the first to take advantage of it.

In the next post, I’ll talk about the significance of the green movement in relation to the new economy and how smart businesses are getting on board.

The Overview

Today’s economy is a fast, rapidly changing, virtually unpredictable landscape to do business in. The market landscape is changing every day. New businesses spring up and old businesses close as market trends take off in new directions, seemingly without warning. New, unexpected sources of competition emerge, forcing competing companies to alter their strategies quickly and effectively.

With the advent of the Internet and continuing on today, substantial research can be done quickly. Companies can check up on their competition with ease and alter their business strategies accordingly. With a rapid exchange of information comes an increased rate of business activity and change. As the global market sees more and more activity and encompasses more and more countries, we see new sources of competition arising all over the globe; as if domestic competition wasn’t enough!

It lends credit to the phrase, “It’s like a jungle out there.” And to an extent, this phrase rings true. Analogous to the diversity of jungle life, we see a diverse assortment of businesses out there, all of them with different services, approaches, and (sometimes strange) personalities. But with diversity and healthy competition comes a brilliance and vibrancy of life. Just take a look at the Amazon. Though this new economy is sometimes unpredictable and at times crazy, I myself am optimistic about the resulting benefits it will provide.  

But the question persists: in the face of this new, global, fast economy, how does a business survive?  Well by adapting of course! A business can adapt by becoming stronger, more intelligent, and craftier in method. This is not easily done, of course.  

Our struggles to understand this strange new fast-track economy have been exacerbated by this seemingly endless recession we have been stuck in. Times are still tough! But they are also getting better. And though this recession has been hard on us all, I think it is also making us stronger: more lean, more efficient, more conscious of the market.

Add our current environmental crises to the mix and we can be seen to have a lot on our plate. But even though it has been a struggle, we are now more conscious of the environment than ever. Our hardships and worries have given us a greater awareness of the need to generate sustainable living…both on an ecological level and an economic level as well. Our hardships have proven to be bittersweet. I believe we will come out of this recession stronger than ever and able to build a better society in the future.

This article series will cover how businesses are adapting to the changing economy and how they are continuing to survive in this new, crazy marketplace.

In the next blog post, I will go over how successful businesses are becoming more flexible and change-friendly in order to keep up with changing market conditions.