At first, it sounds like a good thing: Americans are saving more, making frugality the center piece of spending decisions. As fears of the recession continue to mount, saving rates are in the up-swing with positive savings rates now being the norm rather than the exception. Economists now expect the personal savings rate to reach between 3% and 5% in 2009, a significant trend reversal from the last few years that saw the rate dip below zero as recently as 2005.
So why be so concerned now when Americans seem to have gotten the message of the wisdom of living within their means and have begun retrenching from the bankrupt philosophy of speculative and uncertain financial gains?
The answer lies in what economists call the “Paradox of Thrift” and timing has a lot to do with it.
· Saving is a good decision both at the individual level and on the aggregate for the whole economy, as savings are the source of capital used to finance investments that help the economy grow.
· However, for most Americans (except the very wealthy), savings and spending are two sides of the same coin. If we save more, we spend less; conversely, if we spend more, we save less.
· If U.S. households are saving more, it follows therefore, they are spending less and this change is hurting small businesses, the source of job creation in the American economy.
A dollar saved is not a dollar spent. Given that consumer spending accounts for over 70% of our gross domestic product, today’s new found thrift fueled to a large extent by fear, seriously impairs the odds of a prompt economic recovery. If consumer spending does not pick-up, the economy will continue to suffer.
Facing decreased demand for their products and services, the over 27.2 million small businesses who account for over 50% of US workers on payroll, continue to lay-off workers, put on hold expansion plans and reduce capital expenditures; a confluence of decisions that on the aggregate make things worse for the economy. This sequence of events contributes to a vicious-circle where economic uncertainty creates fear and reinforces the need for increased savings which leads in turn to reductions in spending and so goes the cycle.
Recent steps by the Obama administration outlined in the Stimulus Package provide some relief to small businesses with improved access to credit, tax relief and updated incentives for capital investment. These fiscal and monetary measures, however, do not tackle the larger problem of how to improve consumer confidence and bring saving rates to a healthy balance without endangering our path to a prompt and sustainable economic recovery.
To achieve profitability in these uncertain times, it is critical for small business owners to continuously measure and assess the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and advertising budget across all communication channels: web, social marketing, direct mail, radio, TV, print media, etc.
This information-based strategy ensures an optimal allocation of marketing resources at each stage of the customer lifecycle: who to target, which customers to retain and which ones to grow in order to achieve profitable growth in good and challenging times alike.
Facing declining margins, increasing competition, tightening credit and thrifty consumers, experience and intuition do not by themselves ensure business success. To achieve profitability, these important skills need to be supplemented by the power of customer information: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
6:48 PM GMT | Read comments(5)November 24Small Business Owners to Face Intensifying Credit Crunch
Small and Medium businesses unable to stem the slide in sales growth due to a weakening economy and curtailed consumer spend, are beginning to eliminate marketing programs in a short sighted effort to reduce costs and keep their businesses profitable.
Whereas it is critical to align costs to revenues, we advice small and medium businesses to deploy the following 3-Step Strategy and evaluate its effectiveness before undertaking any drastic reductions in marketing spend:
· Focus marketing programs and efforts to customer retention as a top priority. Be bold and reallocate whatever limited resources are available to support customer loyalty programs. Facing difficult times, it is more important than ever to hold-on to the most profitable and loyal customers.
· Accelerate the transition and adoption of Social Marketing (Blogging, RSS, Social Search, Wiki’s, Social Bookmarking and Social Networking). Leverage the good-will of loyal customers by asking them to share and post their experiences online. A good reference, recommendation or positive review can have a great impact. Unfortunately, so can a bad review from a dissatisfied customer. Leverage these channels to improve brand image and business reputation.
· Reduce and/or postpone tactical spending (travel, outside meetings, travel, equipment purchases, etc.).
In these challenging economic times, we constantly remind our clients of the importance and cost-effectiveness of customer retention programs. It costs far less to retain a loyal customer than to acquire a new one. To ensure survival, businesses need to be fast and nimble and move faster than the competition. Social Marketing provides Small and Medium businesses with a powerful and untapped marketing resource to help them achieve this goal.
Small and midmarket businesses lag in the adoption of Business Intelligence systems because of the widely held misconception that large amounts of data are required to enjoy the benefits of information-based decisions. This myth has persisted supported in large part by the popularity of Data Warehouses.
Whereas Data Warehousing implementations have found some success among larger enterprises, results at small and midsize businesses have been less than encouraging. From our observations, smaller and midsize businesses are better served by deploying readily available Off-the-Shelf SQL Database Servers that can be easily coupled with Business Intelligence decision systems. This nimbler but scalable solution can be easily expanded as determined by business needs. The benefits from this approach are two-fold: a low risk, rapid deployment and affordability.
In addition, recent industry developments : SaaS (Software as a Service), Retained Analytic Services and Pay for Performance Consulting Services; offer smaller businesses the flexibility to pay for services on an as needed basis, rather than committing limited financial resources to expensive software, hardware and talent acquisition expenditures.
From our experience, small and midmarket businesses can enjoy the benefits and competitive advantage of information-based decisions by implementing a three-step strategy:
· Start small with a scalable SQL database management system and expand its size gradually as determined by business needs.
· Deploy Business Intelligence solutions that are aligned with the skill level and readiness of your organization.
· Consider the trade-offs between complexity and adoption. Complex analytical solutions may be hard to sell and get organizational support to make them effective and successful.
If somewhat counter-intuitive, simpler solutions yield higher returns, especially so in smaller businesses new to the benefits of information-based decisions. Get help with thisPlease respect copyright