New thinking needs new approaches

The last 18 months has witnessed an acceleration in the development of businesses, working from home and the digitisation of systems and processes.

However, one of the biggest surprises has been the number of businesses that have ‘pivoted’.

The art of pivoting is moving the business into a different direction, a totally new market, or the development of a product or service not currently in its brand.

This is not usually seen in large organisations as their systems are not agile enough to pivot. So this is one strategy that SMEs should be taking advantage of to strengthen their resilience.

The ‘old’ approach has been to develop three-year strategies. We encourage businesses to work on their ‘three horizons’ in the correct order.

The first is ‘defending and extending’ their current core business, with pivoting being one strategic approach.

These businesses are seeing rapid growth, with companies on the Two/Zero Resurgence programme reporting 40 per cent increases in turnover after eight months.

The move towards diversification is sparking the need for legal support. With new ideas comes the need for IP considerations, contracts and trademarks.

We have also supported companies looking to recover some of their costs to these new product developments and R&D tax credit applications have grown significantly.

New leadership styles have come to the surface, with more inclusive teams open to new ideas which need people from different backgrounds and experiences.

While being agile, it is important not to forget the basics. Sales and marketing activities need to be reviewed regularly.

Spending more time in development of new ideas, being more creative and pivoting your business will also have financial and cashflow implications that will need to be closely addressed.

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