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Reinvent your business – Digital revolution

 Bosnakis Ioannis
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Reinvent your business
– the digital revolution

For many decades, information technology was considered merely a supportive tool in business development. The main objective of IT departments was, accordingly, the automatization of processes and data management. IT was about improving process performance.

Business is taken over by new players

However, today, we find ourselves in a new era, with digitalization disrupting essentially businesses in its traditional form.
Some striking examples are:
• Travel portals which almost have replaced the classic tour operators/travel agencies
• Online shopping which gradually overtakes local retail shops
• Fintech companies which replace traditional banks
• Technology companies which become leaders in the car sector

Ultimately, there is no industry which is not being affected by digital disruption in one way or the other. Even more challenging is the speed with which this is happening.
And yet, most of the companies struggle badly to assess the threat or rather to recognize the tremendous new opportunities of digitalization. Why is that?

Transform yourself or die!

The answer is obvious: for a start, management has to acknowledge that business might become obsolete very soon. They have to operate in a doomsday scenario. Who in his or her right mind is able to do that?

Steve Jobs for example was. You remember that about 15 years ago Apple had, thanks to the iPod, reinvented itself from a struggling computer company to an innovative leader in consumer electronics. Even better, by repositioning, Apple started to be again successful also in its classic computer business. And what happened next? Apple killed the ipod! They cannibalized their main income source and replaced it with the even more successful iPhone! They did this not when iPods were declining in sales, but at the very peak of their success.

Cannibalize yourself

As Steve Jobs said, if they had not done this, most probably a competitor would have.
Nowadays Apple is taking the next step: from chasing sales of devices to increasing revenues through innovative services on devices.
This is the key of Apple’s success: a continuous transformation and innovation, without any hesitation, to question achievements of the past.

Another obstacle to face disruption by digitalization is that companies in order to identify opportunities of new technologies often rely on their in-house IT department.  Though their role and mindset is a completely different one. Exploring new business models by digitalization and managing IT systems are two completely different things.

Understanding new business models

Digital transformation is a field, which requires a completely new approach and new combination of skills. Deep understanding of business modelling and digital tools have to be combined.
Digital companies lack satisfactory knowledge in business modelling. While they clearly know “how to do” things, they would not necessarily know “what to do”.  They heavily rely on worked-out concepts and precise specifications.

What is the next big thing?

Another big threat of digitalization is that companies have difficulties to predict future requirements. They often get stunned by developments they have “not seen coming”.
Think of Tesla: a newcomer has turned the car-industry upside down. The company’s huge advantage is how it approached driving mobility in a completely new way. By underestimating new technologies and new trends, the established car producers gave Tesla enough time to achieve a significant technology lead. Even if the company in terms of produced cars is still small in comparison to the established players, Tesla today is worth more than Mercedes, Volkswagen and Audi combined. Their last hope was that Tesla would fail to enter mass production. High volumes as barriers for newcomers, but, once again, they were proven wrong .

Disruption is by definition radical

Disruption questions everything you were relying on and proud of.
In order to innovate business, companies need external support for two main reasons:

  • input has to come from experts, who are not captured in established corporate culture. You need people who are not limited by internal power balances or entrenched in false pride of the past
  • new skills are asked, especially in terms of new business models

Steve Jobs brought Apple back to success, after a decade of absence. This gave him the resolve to break-up in no time with bad management culture. He stopped a disoriented product philosophy and initiated a radical u-turn in Apple.

Companies have to transform their business in time as long as they are still on the wave of success with their current business. Understand that digitalization will threaten your business much sooner than you think.
Digitalization at the same time can be a big opportunity for reinventing your business and for achieving a new, high dynamic.

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The 4 major trends in export business

 Bosnakis Ioannis
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The 4 major trends in export business

Added-value services & innovation

In the last years the role of suppliers is significantly changing. It is not anymore about just delivering products. The key for profitable export business are added-value services and product innovation. Both can put you out the low-margin mainstream business and lead to higher margins and stronger loyalty from your customers. Buyers are expecting new, proactive support and advisory from their suppliers. Don’t wait your customers to ask for new products, provide them!

New business models

Standardised, high volume sales are outdated. Even big-volume customers expect nowadays flexibility and new supply models. In consequence, your business is threatened not from the known competitors but from unknown newcomers. Very often innovating start–ups outpace in no time the established market leaders. Size and economies of scale are no longer a guarantee for a strong market position. Just think of Tesla.

Selective lead generation

Generic mail campaigns or even expensive presence in fairs are not longer generating new business but are huge waste of financial resources. Customers will hardly pay attention to you! What is required are carefully evaluated short-lists of prospects, to which you can bring customised propositions, which are worth of reading!

Digital marketing & communication

Business is going digital! Digitalization is turning marketing, communication and even products upside down. This can be a serious threat, but in reality it is a huge opportunity to boost business.

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Covid – The next day for businesses

 Bosnakis Ioannis
By:
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The last weeks we all were concerned to stay healthy and to try to understand the Covid pandemic, which came into our life in so short time. The unprecedented lockdown provided us plenty of time to give many of thoughts.

Most of the companies had to manage in no time huge decline of turnover, but at the end of a short crash is always somehow manageable. The problem of covid is that initial hopes for a quick recovery are dispelling.
Not even the experts can foresee the development of the next weeks, but what we can be sure about is that even in best case scenarios the normalisation will take many months or even years.
Even worse, the overall financial impact is still to come.

So the big question is what we can do to secure the survival of business and to minimise the threats and losses?

Realism
The first step to make is a realistic assessment of the situation. Statements like “we will make it” are ok for private discussions with our family and friends, but not a roadmap for your company. Realism does not mean to be pessimistic, but you need to try for an accurate evaluation of things to come.

Immediate actions
We need to understand the importance of taking immediate, specific and decisively actions. In this unique situation it is no exaggeration to say that every day counts!

Disruption
Forget about how you were doing business until yesterday. The next day will be very different referring the what and the how.

Your action plan should consider on:

• Costs: Minimize immediately your fix costs. This is painful, but there is no alternative. There are many options to transform your fix costs into flexible costs without any discount on your operation and performance. In contrary, you will be probably surprised about how new ways of running your operation can optimise your overall efficiency.

• Digitalization: Implement and setup digital tools at all levels of your company. Forget about travelling and personal meetings for a long time. Take advantage of digital communication tools and think about digital promotion and sales of your products. What appeared to be impossible up to now, most likely has to become possible now!

• Demand: For most of the companies demand of current customers and current markets will drop significantly. Important is that this development won’t be a bad surprise. You should expect it. The good news are that there are still many customers and many markets you don’t sell yet. Now is the time!

• Innovation in products and services: never waste a crisis! Consider the crisis as an unique opportunity to think about evolving and innovating your products and services. Take advantage of the current setback and transform it into an opportunity.

Stay optimistic
Panic and anxiety are in the human nature, but in business they are the worst advisors and lead to bad results. Don’t spend time on never ending theories and discussions and proceed day by day. Each day of taking actions in the right direction will pay off sooner as you think.

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Understanding local mindsets in global business

 Chief editor
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This article is about the way we think and act in this globalised era of time by using the example of Czech market versus the Greek. After 10 years in the Greek market and almost two and a half years in the Czeck one, this article is about differences and similarities in the mindset of those 2 markets. Although it does not appear at first sight, those two countries may have enough things in common when it comes to their economic history. By understanding the past of a country we are able to understand the way it works today, realise how it approaches tomorrow and also comprehend the attitude of its people.

So when it comes to historical similarities we may notice that both countries have a past of “hurted” economies. The Communist past of Czech Republic in comparison with the Greek history (Turkish/German occupation of the country) provides us reasons to believe that it was not only the economy infected by the history but also even the most basic institutions. And this is the point where the similarities end.
​There are two words that signify the differences of the two current mindsets, “past” and “trust”.

Past

For the first one, by living in Czech Republic you may have the impression that the citizens of this country have accepted their past. This provides them of course the opportunity to focus on the present and the future of their country. New business ideas and innovation are all around. You may even hear some people complaining that “We do not innovate enough” or that “The state does not focus on our future as much as they should”.
On the other hand, when it comes to the current mindset in Greece, I am under the impression that people have not really overcome their past habits (something that surprisingly they were forced to, after the COVID-19 outbreak). Till recently words like home office or parental leave, were considered part of science fiction for the biggest part of the employed people in Greece. It appears that people have stayed committed to a past that it is not any longer available and most importantly it will not help them to move forward. By quoting the Ted speech “The two faces of Greece” by Alexis Papachelas, “Being focused only in the past is like driving a car, with your eyes at the back mirror the whole time, you are destined to crash”. It is out of question that practises and mindsets should be reconsidered.

Trust

​The second word is “Trust”. In Czech Republic, when it comes to business level, you may feel that there is a highly developed feeling of trust in between the employee and the employer, the customer and the company or even a sales person and the customer. There is not a doubt that, what has been agreed will take place, that any particular problems will not be mentioned or that one of the two sides will not be held responsible for any defect. That is exactly the reason and the base of trust.
In comparison with this, in Greece, you may feel that this feeling is not enhanced enough. After almost 10 years of economic crisis, business relationships are more destroyed than ever. Relationships in between vendors and companies, companies and employees have been seriously affected, both ways. We have to realise that trust is one of the basic pillars in an economic system. And in the Greek case, trust is something that has to be also developed and enhanced by the state.

What is all this past and trust thing about? Does is has anything to do with business? Yes it has!
Two, quite small countries, both located in the same economic region of Europe and yet with significant differences in terms of mindset, attitude, communication and cooperation.

To successfully penetrate a market, a company has to make its homework and to learn about the history, culture and situation of each market and its people.
In order to take cultural particularities into account, cooperating with local partners always leads to much better results in comparison to a generic approach by distance.

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