For other businesses it has not been quite as simple.
Take the case of Fitness Playground a Sydney based company that operates 5 amazing ‘fitness playgrounds or gyms (in old-school language) with 15,000 members and 200+ staff - including many personal trainers for all kind of fitness classes and activities. Within a week they were forced to close down all of their gyms by the government and all weekly payments from customers were suspended. What a nightmare. However, instead of firing most of the staff and going into hibernation they decided it was time to switch to a whole new way of engaging with their customers online. They seized the moment and within a week were able to shoot 180 videos, build a platform and launch a new business called ‘Virtual Playground’. Virtual Playground is now offering a weekly subscription service where their existing customers and new customers can join as many of the 180 video classes as they like for less than $10/week. This was a way to retain their existing customers and their existing staff but transfer the playground from a physical playground to the online world using Zoom and Instagram live. Good Job!
Some SME businesses however may have found themselves in a bit of a pickle as their business model - their software, systems and processes – may be ‘old-school’ and not able to easily adapt to a totally different business environment.
Whereas those SME businesses that have a ‘new-school’ business model – with cloud based software that speaks to each other and integrates with a customised CRM (Customer relationship management) system – have been able to pivot their operations and service delivery to a work from home model with minimal loss of efficiency.
This is just one advantage of operating from a new-school ‘digital-ready’ operating model.
We all operate in two worlds these days – the ‘old-school’ physical world and the ‘new-school’ digital world. With the limitations on our interaction with the physical world caused by the COVID-19 pandemic this has highlighted the importance of how we interact as individuals and businesses in the multi-faceted and hyper-competitive digital world.
‘New-school’ businesses operate in an optimal state of ‘digital readiness’ which means they are ‘digital-ready’ to deliver a superior customer experience than their competitors.
It’s as simple as that. BY being ‘digital-ready’ new-school businesses of all sizes are able to use available technologies to adapt and optimise their business systems and processes to deliver a better customer experience – while generating greater operating efficiencies, lower costs, higher revenues and a greater ROI on their digital marketing investment.
So if you’d like to make sure you don’t stay stuck with an ‘old-school’ business model in our ‘new-school’ digital world, why not take the opportunity to find out how ‘digital-ready’ your business is?
Plus that just got a whole lot easier. INBODA is now offering SME’s a FREE Digital Readiness Assessment - See if you qualify.