Every day we are getting closer and closer to the re-opening of our communities, societies, and markets. All of us are looking impatiently forward to getting out into the real world again and interacting with other humans beyond our immediate families and Corona friends. And of course, all the business that have been held back or paused all together can’t wait to start selling and growing again. In many cases to ensure survival, to get back on track with the trajectory they had before, to leverage the instability to gain market shares or to discover new growth.
The challenge in these efforts is, that the status quo in every aspect has been disrupted by the Pandemic. And currently no one knows, what the new normal is going to be and in which aspects this new normal has any resemblance to the normal we used to know before. This applies to the perspective of customers and consumers as well. How is the new normal going to effect perceived needs, preferences, loyalties, frequency, volume, and occasion perspective? Just to name a few.
The real answer is that no one knows. But everyone can expect that it is likely to be very different across categories, segments, countries, and brands. Because the drivers are so diverse. In some categories and countries, we already see consumers rallying up to support their local stores and manufacturers and by this supporting the community they are part of. In other areas we see a maintained shift to ecommerce with focus on platforms rather than brands, because the convenience is addictive and the lack of need to interact with others required to wear a mask has become a familiar habit. Some products have experienced a drop in sales even though their distribution has been maintained. Where others have risen with no clear explanation.
What this also means, is that all of your historical data can’t help you define your strategies for getting back on a growth track. They are based on the old normal and an abundance of preconditions that are no longer represented in today’s consumer behavior. Basing strategies on these datasets will more often than not be highly misleading. The dilemma of course being that you have them and getting new data can be a process that is both costly and time consuming.
So, what is to prefer. Going in blind with no data, building on data that is known to be unreliable, or finding a different approach to enrichen growth strategies with data, that can be pursued within reasonable time and costs?
Factive is committed to making change in the world removing doubts as the barrier for doing. We want to challenge the current realities of the status quo with imagination powered by technology and data to create more meaningful and useful relationships between people and brands that lead to growth. We help business grow by creating dynamic and predictive datasets, that are more accurate, more cost effective and faster processed than any other approach. Learn more at:
https://factive.io
