Why not incubate while you hibernate?

Through no fault of our own, many of us SME business owners now find ourselves having to work from home while we follow government orders to try to minimise the health impact to our communities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We hear the government seeks to have SME businesses hibernate and then hopefully our businesses will spring back to life when the danger is over. Let’s hope that time comes soon. In the meantime, it's back to hibernating.

Hibernation can take many forms. For squirrels, it's time to snuggle up and tuck in to all those acorns they’ve stored up for winter. For us humans our current state of hibernation may involve a bit of work, a lot of binge-watching Netflix and generally a fair amount of pacing the cage with regular visits to the fridge. It does not have to be this way.

We’d like to suggest you consider using this time to think about how you can follow the Scout Motto to make sure your SME business is better prepared for any other unexpected shocks to the system in the future. For those, who have never heard of the Boy Scouts here it is.

The Scout Motto - Be Prepared

The Scout’s motto means that you are always ready to do what is necessary to help others. It also means you are ready, willing, and able to do what is necessary in any situation that comes along. Wouldn’t it be nice if as an SME business owner your business was designed and equipped to be ready, willing, and able to do what is necessary in any situation that comes along.

We live in two worlds

We think there’s no better time than now to start thinking about this fact of modern life. We live in two worlds these days – the physical world and the digital world. What happens in our physical world can sometimes, like now, be completely out of our control. In fact, how prepared we are in the digital world can often be key to the future success and survival of our businesses.

We call this ‘an optimal state of digital readiness’

It’s become increasingly clear that those SMEs that not only survive but thrive in the hyper-competitive world we live in, operate at ‘an optimal state of digital readiness’. Their business model is new school not old school. What this means is they have a cloud-based operating ecosystem which is all interconnected so their staff can access the data they need from anywhere at any time. So even in a total lockdown situation their SME business can run as normal and continue to deliver an exceptional experience to their customers.

How many SMEs are Digital Ready? Sadly, not many are

Most SMEs are not yet operating in a high state of digital readiness. But don’t despair. It does not cost a fortune. In fact, once you are operating in an optimal state of digital readiness you will be able to boost growth, cut costs, increase revenues and deliver a much better return from your digital marketing investment.

What does it take to find out how digital ready your business is?

Simply search for Inbound Digital Architects or Digital Readiness Assessment. Your SME business may qualify for a Free Digital Readiness Assessment, which you can start by completing an online questionnaire.

Hibernation – Rejuvenation – Optimisation

This will help you get more out of hibernation and look at what you can do to rejuvenate your business and operating model and help you understand how you can optimise your business by becoming Digital Ready.