According to Richard Branson CEO and Founder of Virgin "A business's long history is meaningless if it doesn't provide the best-designed, most reliable products or services at competitive prices and back up those offerings with the finest customer service". In these fast-moving times, longevity is more the exception than the rule. According to a 2012 study by Richard N. Foster of Yale University, the average lifespan of a company listed in the Standard & Poor's 500 index has decreased to just 18 years, from 61 years in 1958.
Are you becoming complacent?
Almost no products are so good that they cannot be
constantly improved on. In the UK they have a great saying: “like painting the Forth Bridge in Britain"
which is an unending task. This is because the painters of this massive bridge
in Edinburgh were never done - once they had finished painting it, they then
were needed to immediately start again. The task came to an end in 2011,
because workers had switched to a new kind of paint. This is a great example
how your businesses product development should be a similarly endless quest for
improvement.
According to Bluecorona Small Business Statistics for
2016/2017
- 66%
of small business owners say that finding new customers is a top concern.
- 40%
of small business owners say that retaining customers is a priority.
- 43%
of SMBs says that improving customer experience and retention is their top
strategy to improve revenue growth.
- 30%
say that keeping up with technology advances is a major concern of small
business owners.
What is Future Proofing?
