Scarcity & Value
We are in for a long recovery, out of this there’s an interesting notion for businesses that companies and their brands need to be prepared to think about their value in a new way. I thought many of the questions that HBR proposes business leaders address are the challenges that we face everyday because of how digital has changed media and consumer behavior, namely: value, innovation and consumer-driven demand.
First where we are, the Lean Years as Thomas Friedman explains:
A small news item from Tracy, Calif., caught my eye last week. Local station CBS 13 reported: “Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 911 for a medical emergency. But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year, which allows them to call 911 as many times as necessary. Or there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.”
Welcome to the lean years.
Yes, sir, we’ve just had our 70 fat years in America, thanks to the Greatest Generation and the bounty of freedom and prosperity they built for us. And in these past 70 years, leadership — whether of the country, a university, a company, a state, a charity, or a township — has largely been about giving things away, building things from scratch, lowering taxes or making grants.
Next what some HBR strategists say should be the response of businesses to these times:
The “S” word was on the lips of all CEOs and politicians attending the World Economic Forum at Davos last month. No, it wasn’t “stimulus” — as global leaders looked beyond the bailouts of 2009 and into the future. Instead, this year’s ‘S’ word was scarcity.
We believe that this new age of scarcity in the face of ever more demanding consumers will require a new strategy for disruptive innovation and growth that we call More for Less for More (M4L4M): a strategy that places an emphasis on delivering more value for less cost for more people.
