The Future Face of Business

This year my good friend in the printing industry joined the ranks of nearly everyone I know:  he took a pay cut to save his job while his company flounders.  My friend in the auto repair industry reorganized, laid off his high-paid technicians, sold his shops and is now repairing cars in the garage behind his house.  My friend who designs automobile parts lost his job in the declining Midwest auto industry.  Fortunately, he returned to his roots as a design engineer in appliance manufacturing.  My friend in the computer industry hasn’t been so lucky; he is still looking for a job after more than 18 months of being unemployed or underemployed. 

Economists all agree that unemployment is a lag indicator:  it is more a result of where the economy has been than of where it’s going.  But those looking ahead wonder what chance they have to succeed in a declining market.  If that’s what the economy looks like, is there any hope for the entrepreneur wanting to start a new business, when even established companies are dropping like flies?

There is a method to this madness that we call economic recovery.  It may be complicated.  It may be more of an intelligent guess than an actual prediction.  But it is based on history and statistics.  We will recover; but the business world will look different than in did in the last century. 

The U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics made such a prediction in its report on the “Top 10 Growing and Shrinking Industries” for the next 10 years.  A Marketing Charts article summarizes the report.  The article predicts the decline of U.S. manufacturing, likely a result of more companies outsourcing or moving overseas to cut costs.  It verifies, too, the aging population that demands more health care.  It also demonstrates the rise of high-tech industries, resulting in less demand for printed material and wired telecommunications.  A case-in-point:   the highly industrial cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing industry is expected to experience the highest overall percentage decline (57%).  It, too, has moved overseas, where labor costs are a fraction of what they are in the U.S.  Newspaper publishing will decline 25%, being replaced by the highly flexible, economical, Internet-based media.

The top 10 industries expected to experience the steepest employment declines:

1. Department stores
2. Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing
3. Motor vehicle parts manufacturing
4. Postal service
5. Printing and related support activities
6. Cut and sew apparel manufacturing
7. Newspaper publishers
8. Support activities for mining
9. Gasoline stations
10. Wired telecommunications carriers

The report also lists the top 10 growth industries:

1. Management, scientific and technical consulting services
2. Offices of physicians
3. Computer systems design and related services
4. Other general merchandise stores
5. Employment services
6. Local government, excluding education and hospitals
7. Home health care services
8. Services for the elderly and persons with disabilities
9. Nursing care facilities
10. Full-service restaurants

What does this mean for those entering the business market?  Success might just come to those who are looking more to fill a consumer need than to fulfill a personal dream.   The business winners in the next ten years will be the truly innovative, forward-looking, but pragmatic entrepreneur.  Don’t lose heart; for the budding business-owner that is willing to do the research and the hard work, there is still room at the top.

Sue. A. Evans

Recession-Proofing Your Business

850, Northwest Florida’s hot new business periodical, gives some valuable ideas for sustaining your business during tough economic times.  Highlighting several entrepreneurs that are finding success during an economy that is taking its toll on even the most stable players, the article focuses on methods that work in EVERY market.  The article, “Recession-Proof Ingenuity,” follows five area business owners as they work to build their business using a few tried-and-true techniques, as well as new approaches.  The capstone of the article is this list of no-nonsense hints to help you, too, thrive in difficult times:

Don’t Just Survive, Thrive!:  Tips for Small Business Owners During the Recession

• Ramp up your business development. Visibility, credibility, profitability. Get out there and keep hunting for business.
• Get clear on your niche markets. Don’t just assume because you have a business people will buy from you. You must define the markets you service and get in front of them consistently.
• Form strategic alliances. Who sells complementary products or services to your market? Look for ways to align yourselves to add value to your market.
• Build champions. Champions are people who know what you do, the type of client you service and refer business to you on a regular basis.
• Get creative. Use social media such as blogging and podcasts or social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to build strong networks in exchange only for your time.
• Check your mindset. Are you buying in to the fear or rising above it? There is a lot of low hanging fruit out there if you’re prepared to weather the storm.
• Use measurement tools to manage your business development. Sales funnels and profit models are great to keep you on track to reach your goals.
• Shed dead weight. If you have to let staff go because they don’t fit the business model, or you need to move away from colleagues who are getting dragged in to the ‘doom and gloom,’ do whatever you have to do to surround yourself with positive, opportunistic, hard-working people.
• Systemize all areas of the business that you can. Take all the guess work out of your business development. Use seamless, consistent processes that are measureable.
• Use your financial statements to assess the health of your business. Review them at least once a month.

Tips courtesy Heather White, ghost adviser for Ghost CEO

Sue A. Evans