Your company is doing well. Revenues are increasing, opportunities abound, and competition is not too fierce. Simply said, the economy is flourishing.
But it is not the first time you have been in that situation. You know very well that you must continue to improve your business to reach a leadership position, or at least maintain your current position because some of the other players will definitely be improving.
The big question is where should you invest your precious and scarce resources to get “the biggest bang for your buck”?
Where to invest and why
The objective of a strategic investment is to create a sustainable unfair competitive advantage for your company (i.e. something your competitors can’t easily offer and that is valuable for your customers)
It does not matter if you are a manufacturing company, a service company, a systems integrator or a distributor, there are only a few strategic areas where you can invest to make a difference;
- Intellectual Property / Technology – Investing in IP and technology is a great way to gain an advantage over your competitors. But developing IP/Technology takes years and will draw a significant portion of your company’s resources. And there is always the risk your R&S efforts won’t be successful. Do you have this kind of time and money available?
- Operational – In a mature market the companies with the best operations will prevail. Being able to deliver services or build products at the lowest possible cost gives operational leaders the “wiggle’ room they need to maintain acceptable margins and win a price war. Being an operational leader also requires time and significant investments. This is certainly a good choice for most companies, but is it the best choice?
- Customers – Nothing else matters… without customers. Is it possible for a company to generate an unfair competitive advantage centered on customers and to benefit from it? If yes, how much time would it take and how much would it cost? Is this a faster and cheaper way to reach our profitability goals?
Consider these simple yet powerful statistics (more here);
- a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75% – Bain and Company Inc.
- The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20% – Marketing Metrics
- A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10% – Leading on the Edge of Chaos, Emmet Murphy & Mark Murphy.
KONNEK delivers customer retention…. fast and cost-effective
Clearly most companies are underestimating the value of their customer base and are missing out on an easier, faster and cheaper way to generate value and differentiate themselves from competition.
KONNEK makes your company more profitable by:
- 1 – Increasing Parts, Consumables and special Services sales
- 2 – Increasing new product sales
- 3 – Decreasing OPEX
Estimate your return
A very important metric to prioritize your investment is the expected return for every unit invested ($, €, £…).
- Try to determine what is the true potential of your installed base in terms of PCS sales (see how here). Then compare this potential to your actual numbers. Are you satisfied or do you think you can do better? The above estimator will help you determine the positive impact increased high margin sales would have on your profitability (step 1 of the estimator)
Click on image to access estimator
- Selling should not be a single event, it should be an infinite loop… if you don’t want to waste the value embedded in your existing customers and installed base of equipment. With a better customer experience delivered with the help of a tool like KONNEK, how much more new product sales would you generate, 1, 3, 5 or 10% ? (step 2)
- When a customer calls for a replacement part for a product you sold a few years back, how much time it takes to find the right info? Is the customer still on the line when you have finally found the answer? With KONNEK there is no more searching for the info. The end-user and your employees look at the same info simultaneously. What would be the savings generated in your customer service department? (step 3).
For every dollar invested in KONNEK, you should expect a return between 5-20$. Leveraging your customer and equipment base is by far the quickest and most efficient way to improve profitability and differentiate your company.