Change is one of the key determinants of business success. Managers who thrive are usually those who can introduce and exploit changes that present an opportunity, while defending against changes that present a threat.
It’s a useful exercise to undertake a “change audit” in your business. This involves listing the changes you’re currently facing, those you can see on the horizon, and those you’d like to introduce yourself.
The key is to identify unavoidable changes (such as technological change, or the emergence of a new competitor) so you can decide how to manage them. And you also need to identify desirable changes (such as a new product launch, or an overhaul of your management structure) so that you can work out how to bring them about.
When it comes to implementing change across your business, there are a few pointers to bear in mind. First of all, make change an incremental process, so that it’s easier to manage and so that you have the chance to tweak things as you go if initial phases aren’t as smooth as you’d have hoped for.
And don’t forget the role of leadership in introducing change. You need to act as an advocate with anyone who’ll be affected by the changes you’re proposing—whether staff, customers or suppliers.
Read about reorganisations, restructures and other major changes
One of the secrets of marketing success is to get as close as you can to your customers’ perceptions of the marketplace. If you can see the market through your customers’ eyes, then you’ll have a better chance of positioning your business to appeal to them.
Brand mapping is one market-research technique that attempts to provide this kind of customer’s-eye overview of the market. It involves taking consumer responses to questions about a range of brands and representing them visually on a simple scatter graph.
The key is to boil the analysis down to the two key attributes that will give your graph its x and y axes. For example, you might decide to set your graph up to plot “price” against “quality”.
This allows you to position the different brands on the graph on the basis of how consumers rate them. It’s a simple approach, but it can yield very clear and direct results – seeing a visual representation of how near or far your brand is from its competitors can be a very valuable exercise.
As with any market research exercise, however, the results produced by brand mapping can only be as powerful as the data that generate them. That means getting your consumer insights right and it means setting up as carefully as possible the two key dimensions that shape your graph.
Find out more about branding and market research