Growing businesses follow a well-known formula.

 

Day to day, it is all about improving the growth, efficiency, & performance of a business by leveraging operational excellence. 

Long-term performance concerns new opportunities – gaps – blue oceans ( not fighting in red oceans) – adjacent market opportunities, all from strategy excellence and transformations. 

Business Frameworks, Opportunities, Challenges, and Complexities are often the same regardless of the business’s name. As a result, business frameworks provide fast and efficient ways to find the root causes of problems and the best solutions. These frameworks recognise that the problems are often the same regardless of industry type. Business consultants use them daily across the world. 

Frameworks help to significantly explain and provide a science-based, proven framework on where to focus a business’s attention and investment. 

The frameworks from independent research identify how and why the best businesses grew the fastest over time. Global and local consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, Boston and many others – are core business tools.

The advantages frameworks provide is 

• Implementing industry best practices allows businesses across all areas of their business to sidestep months, even years, of trial and error and focus only on what is proven to work – saving time, money, and stress. 

• Turn complexity into simplicity – so every business, regardless of size, age or location, can implement best practices – sooner, with less cost and faster outcomes. 

The Broad Principles are 

• Improve your business without spending too much money, saving time and stress using proven best practices that use common sense-tested approaches to lift revenue and profitability, 
• Business improvement is an ongoing and never-ending continuous improvement process – we live in a competitive world – implementing the frameworks into the client’s business is critical for long-term performance improvement, 
• The focus is on achieving a new level of performance sooner. 
• Identifies the critical activities that are wasteful and underperforming and improves quality outcomes by aligning them with proven strategic and operational excellence.

Overstock.com, a USA-based online retailer founded in 1999 after the dot.com bubble collapse, found its first opportunity – selling failed retail businesses excess stocks and any business with excess stock at heavily discounted prices. Customers love it for savings and the width of ranges. 

Invariably businesses discover their 80|20 rules. 

The 80 | 20 rule is everywhere – 

• Most businesses capture 80% of income from 20% of their products and services, 
• Often the best-performing salespeople will produce 80% of the revenue,
• The most challenging HR issues are from 20% of your team,

Overstock.com transformation: it found that non-home products represented 20% of Overstock’s revenue. It pivoted to selling more furniture and home furnishings. 

Their research to support the change included

• Customers purchasing home products from Overstock.com came to the site more frequently, converted at higher rates, and had higher average order values, 
• They also liked that Overstock.com isn’t an everyday-low-price retailer but rather a high-low (was-is) retailer that competes through sales, promotions, coupons, and events, 
• Their data led them to their transformative next steps, 

The changes included

• Overstock.com doubled the number of home and home furnishing SKUs it carried online, 
• Focusing on their two buyer personas – know who your core customers are – The first is the – savvy shopper – they want the best value (price) for the best product available.
• The second segment is the – reluctant refreshers -they may not be as price-conscious as the savvy shoppers. They want to find a product(s) quickly, along with an easy return experience post-purchase.

New growth and profit opportunities found in adjacent markets

• Overstock.com began targeting the former Bed Bath & Beyond (BB+B) shoppers. BB+ B announced closing 400 physical stores in April 2023 due to bankruptcy. 
• Overstock. coms widened the products that BB+B stocked.

Financial Performance

In Q1, 2023, revenue was $381 million, 

• A decrease of 29% YoY – due in part to removing 20% of its underperforming stock ranges, 
• The company has 4.8 million active customers by the end of the quarter, a 35% YoY decrease, 

How is your business pivoting to grow in adjacent markets? 

Does your business have a long-term strategy? 

Is your business selling more online with an effective social selling strategy and platform? 

Regards 

David