As we all know Change is an inevitable part of life. Change is also an important part of business life; it allows a business to adapt to its environment and to improve its market position. It is sometimes done in order to introduce a new more efficient way of working or producing a product. It is sometimes done to re-organize the organizations’ workforce. Businesses will evolve and change within the course of their lives.
Business change occurs when an organization improves, restructures or transforms a major part of its operations disrupting systems, people and processes.
So, Why does Your Business needs Change?
We currently live in a VUCA world. A world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. And so change is very important for any business. Because without change, businesses would not be able to meet the customers’ need and also lose competitive edge.
I will list some of the reason why Your & My Businesses needs Change!!
1. Constant evolving needs of Customers: A good example is Pepsi and Coca-cola. Remember a time where we had solo bottles and Orobo bottles. As customers need evolves, they have to adapt, or risk losing market share. Customers evolve.
The people you were selling your products to last year have already changed; they take a different buyer’s journey and expect an entirely different customer service experience. Are you ready for them? For some of us, customers who were satisfied with doing business during regular opening hours just a few years ago now expect your business to be always open – and available with the swipe of a smartphone. As the world evolves, customer needs change and grow, creating new demand for new types of products and services. This opens up new areas of opportunity for companies to meet those needs.
2. Changing National and Global economy: The economy in which a business operates plays a huge role in the success or failure of that business. A vivid example is Nigeria. Many businesses died when the dollar hit N450 some years ago. We all probably can point to one business around us that has suffered and closed shop due to the economy. The economy can impact organizations in both positive and negative ways and both can be stressful. A strong economy and increasing demand for products and services will mean that companies must consider expansion that might involve the addition of staff and new facilities. These changes offer opportunities for staff, but also represent new challenges
3. Change can turn a crisis into an opportunity: When your business is agile, you can easily turn a crisis into an opportunity. If the crisis is self-made or not, you can turn them into learning mechanisms and evolve. For self-made crisis; When a crisis takes hold, the only way out is change; you’ll need to change whatever it is that prompted the error in the first place in order to ensure it never happens again.
For Acts of God like the current COVID pandemic, you have to adapt to the situation to make your business stay afloat. One of which is adopting technology on a large scale.
4. Constant Changing World of Technology: Without change, many organizations would have totally collapsed with this COVID pandemic. As many of us wouldn’t have been able to bank, send emails, communicate hold meetings and even share documents. This session would also have been impossible. We no longer need to go buy NITEL cards to make phone calls and we can now make business transactions miles away without physical contact. The willingness or unwillingness of businesses to adopt Technology change as it evolves will lead to death or growth of many businesses going forward.
5. Growth Opportunities: With Business changes, it opens you the owner, the staff and management to explore new opportunities, allow staff to learn new skills and this gives freedom for everyone to express creativity which will benefit the business at the end of the day.
6. Challenging Status Quo: By Asking “Why” constantly in Businesses can lead to new ideas. Why are we doing this? Or Why are we not doing this? can lead to new innovations that can yield growth and benefit the organization. Because of time, I won’t be able to dwell on others, but they include Performance Gaps, Reaction to Internal/External Pressure, Changing for the sake of Change.