15/05/2017

John Zerella - BIAS Australia

So what will give your business the edge in the foreseeable future? What should your business be doing that it isn’t? As business owners, we are all looking for the next big thing, what is it that will give our business the edge? I believe, rather than trying to pick the future, we should be structuring our business to quickly adapt to whatever the future brings!

We all understand the importance of innovation. To innovate; is defined as change, transform, reorganise. Innovation refers to changing or creating more effective processes, products and ideas, which can increase the likelihood of your business succeeding. So rather than trying to pick what the change will be, your business should always be in a position to recognise and implement change. Put simply it must be “change ready”.

Advantages sought from technological changes will be short lived. If you think technology in business has been moving fast over the last few years, let me assure you we are only at the start of the exponential curve. Changes in technology will continue to move faster and faster, and in turn, will compel businesses to evolve faster and faster. This will place enormous challenges on businesses and in particular SMEs.

What appears to be an advantage today will rapidly become a commodity, but much faster than it ever has before. For example, when smart phones first became available, those who embraced this technology rapidly instilled efficiency and for a time had an advantage over those who took the time to embrace this form of technology. Today, using a smart phone is a commodity because everyone has one. If you don’t, then you and your business are at a disadvantage, however, it took some years to evolve to this.

We may think that cloud accounting is currently an enduring advantage and the process of connectivity and automation gives us the edge. Whilst it does, for now, this will be short lived and I estimate this too will be a commodity in less that 18 months. So for those businesses who are still researching and thinking about cloud accounting and whether to automate, their business will only be installing a commodity and you will be at a serious disadvantage if you don’t. And very soon!

Your business should be nimble enough to quickly adapt to change and structure it in such a way that it can swiftly and efficiently deal with the rapid evolution of change. It is more crucial than ever, so you must either adapt or be left behind. SMEs need to learn to manage their business like the big multi-nationals. However, given my theory on exponential change, I believe this now provides an opportunity for SMEs because it levels the playing field, no longer will ‘the big have an advantage over the small’ but now ‘the fast will have an advantage over the slow’!

Structure your business to be change ready!