“Be the master of one rather than a jack of all”, this is an old saying that we were taught and learnt in our learning years in school and college. But today business has a different requirement for success.
We have an idea, we check the implementation and finances, and we start a business.
The start of the business is with a product or service that was the need of the consumer. But somewhere along the way, we lost ourselves in trying to make ends meet with profit and revenue being the main aim of the company.
Fortunately, there is always a story behind a number and we fail to read the story. Lets understand this story.
Over the years, businesses have learnt to either hedge their risks by adding more products and services to their offerings or start new brands and companies to make a larger profit.
A lot of the home grown business conglomerates like Reliance, TATA, Infosys, Flipkart, OLX are some of the examples where you can find them increasing their profitability by dipping their offerings into a range of products and services.
While this is possible for growing businesses or for larger organisations, why do start-up companies and MSMEs not see the writing on the wall when they do their business?
The MSME industry is today struggling to make ends meet and more importantly struggling to keep their customers happy. Either they manage to bribe a manager in a department to keep the orders coming or they shut down.
What if they extended their offering to their customer for another service which is a need in the respective industry? A one stop shop for the customer?
Many businesses have already started to expand their horizon of offering and giving the customer more than just a range of products to a range of services.
Let me cite it with an example that is a trend in the city we live in.
In the early 70’s and 80’s, we had restaurants and hotels who would serve single cuisine in their outlets, slowly this has matured to a multi-cuisine restaurant. The customer could get more than a cuisine of their choice in a single restaurant. This allowed the customer to mix and match his meal with the menu of his choice.
Then came the era of the malls, we had many outlets serving us the cuisine of our choice, the customer prefers to eat at the mall because of the larger variety that is being served to them by different brands. Even though they have the option of eating at one of the multi-cuisine restaurants, you will always have the weekend crowd at the mall queuing up for their order.
The offering was not a subjective thought, it evolved with the need of the customer changing and developing it further.
Then came the age of apps, and Zomato, Swiggy, Ubereats were grabbing space for the home delivery packages. The customer can now have a variety of cuisines in the comfort of his home. There is no need to wade in the traffic and wait for the order to be served in a restaurant, they can have it at ease in the comforts of their home and the time of their convenience.
The same industry is facing a challenge that no other but their own production and delivery model is creating a new buzz for the customer. Not that the taste of the food has changed, but the method of preparation and delivery to the customer has been changing.
I am not sure what the customer will need in the future, but if we were to assess the future, I would predict that malls would be offering more entertainment than purchases to attract a customer to their premise, as restaurants are offering similar discounts to its customers as the home delivery apps to have customers visit their outlet for an experience, not the food.
The businesses that adapt to the change are the ones who survive, and those who stick to traditions and methods of yore, are the ones struggling to survive.
Each business needs to see the future of the trends and make known the possibility of the offering that can be a need of the customer. You could be a B2B or a B2C organisation either ways; you need to assess your current state to the something that will be the need of the near or distant future. There are many methods to adapting to the changing trends of your industry and assessing the competition of your industry. Sometimes, the competition can be less imagined and more realised.
When MSMEs are able to assess their offering and increase the span of services, the need of the customer is met with more grace and willingness to be associated with the vendor. This enables the stability and growth of the organisation perennially without hurdles.
It is then preferable to be a jack of all and master of one.
Is this happening in your organisation?
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