Commercial consultancy
How to be successful? Today it is clearer to almost everyone! Finally, how to achieve success is more "clear". The fog that has covered the battlefield in recent years has cleared and the competitive picture appears more readable. In this fog, different corporate attitudes have often been confused but which have produced comparable results with the consequence of homologating very different strategies. Everything is clearer. But if it is clearer what needs to be done? Why doesn't success reach everyone? In fact, few are able to implement the actions necessary to obtain their target share both on the domestic and foreign markets. The share necessary to be protagonists on the market, to be cited as an example among the strong companies, depending on the type of product and the positioning they offer. To be a company that the top sales points in the area cannot help but have among the primary suppliers in their assortment. In reality, to aim for success you need to have the fundamentals in place, namely: economic and financial solidity; clear positioning strategy, pursued for some time and without tactics; flexible production for the quantities sold and at low cost; valid commercial network, perhaps grown with the company; presence in the strongest distribution in the area and most appropriate to the chosen positioning; properties without problems of generational change. The fundamentals highlighted must be practically all of them.Thinking today of intervening on deficient fundamentals is demanding, expensive and often takes a very long time. Economic and financial solidity and positioning strategy depend on how we have operated in recent years, when the markets absorbed much more. In a broader concept of positioning, the depth of the product ranges is fundamental and today represents a strong barrier to entry for many outsiders, who cannot think, just because they offer some similar product and with the same price as the market leader. to be able to replace it so easily. Today, adapting one's production management to the changed relationship between the quantity to be produced and the number of variants, involves substantial investments and difficult to finance from the outside. Searching for new agents today, to fix the areas where the market share is unsatisfactory, is gradually becoming more and more complex. This intervention, from which too many waits have often been dedicated in the past, brings results if you insert elements that live their profession in a way that is appropriate to the times and that does not only mean carrying an iPad. Fixing or implementing an unsuitable distribution today is difficult, time-consuming and costly in terms of physical effort and investment. Sometimes too much compared to the results that can be expected. A clear ownership structure, without any adventurous transitions in progress, will help to look at the next twenty years with more serenity and not, with nostalgia, at the past twenty years. If you find that you are equipped with a good part of the fundamentals mentioned above, it will be possible to dedicate yourself with a targeted and decisive strategy to intervene on the weak points. So as to be able to present itself more and more in line with today's needs and plan a development plan that brings the company among the top players in its area. Otherwise it will be necessary to adapt expectations to one's own strength on the market, managing a non-leading position in the best possible way, focusing on personal drive, dedication, commitment, communication skills and service. In this way, all the components of the commercial structure become decisive. Notoriety and presence in the points of sale become vital. But miracles are a different kettle of fish.
By Ezio Pais, business consultancy for the furniture industry