As the second half of 2024 unfolds, business leaders are reflecting on year-to-date progress to plan and their strategic direction for the remainder of the year. This juncture presents the perfect opportunity to reexamine your company’s go-to-market business model and assess how well it aligns with today’s operating environment.
Ask these three top-of-mind questions for exploration:
1. How are your clients/customers changing?
In other words, who are your clients today, who will they be tomorrow (next quarter, next year), what do they expect from you and what will be different for them going forward? Most businesses seek to attract throughout the year, and some clients may leave the firm. Your next new client will be different than the one who moves on in terms of expectations, anticipation of what you will deliver and alternatives explored before selecting your service or product. Consumer preferences ebb and flow, but rarely do expectations decline. This reality highlights the need for leaders to delve deeper into their inquiry about changing client characteristics as input to assessing go-to-market model efficacy for the remainder of the year (and beyond).
2. How are your team members changing?
Like the client/customer change line of inquiry, who are your employees today, and who will they be tomorrow? How are they changing, and how are their expectations of your firm evolving? What is the employee experience they expect, and what is your employee value proposition? (The answer to the question: why work for our company?) What will be different for the remainder of this year? Understanding and anticipating what matters to team members today and tomorrow may surface gaps in your existing business model before they become chasms.
3. How are your competitors changing?
Who are your key competitors today, and how do you anticipate that will change for the remainder of the year? How do you anticipate your competitors’ approach (go-to-market model) will change as the year progresses? What will these changes mean to your company? Is this the time to pre-emptively refine your client engagement approach?
In my new book, Leading from Now, A Leader’s Guide to Navigating Change, I cover many more areas of strategic inquiry – technology, operations, suppliers, process and pricing as examples. But shifting conditions influencing clients, team members and competitors are three top priority areas of inquiry in terms of their implications on your company’s business model for the remainder of the year and beyond. Why?
Go-to-market business models have a finite shelf life. Operating conditions are continually evolving. The faster the pace of evolution in operating conditions, the sooner business models can become obsolete.
It is the exception rather than the rule that a business can succeed in the long run through a static business model. This may sound obvious, but many companies still operate the same go-to-market business model they operated during the Y2K era. Preparation for a strong performance this year may be the perfect time to revisit your company’s go-to-market operating model.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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