If one thing is constant and consistent in our business and life, that’d be change. The business world is struggling in dealing with disruption especially since new businesses have emerged every single day to cater to our changing demands and needs.

As an entrepreneur, embracing change can be challenging and daunting. That’s why these experts give their tips to help you embrace change and remain competitive in the business world.

Be Keen on the Trends

According to business experts, the first step in acknowledging and embracing change is to know the trends in your chosen field or market. You need knowing what’s in and out, what’s great and not effective anymore.

This includes your customers’ needs, demands, and to find any hole or flaws which your business lacks. According to business experts, the market trends can make or break your business. The trends serve as your business’ warning signals to determine whether something must be changed or not. An example of a changing market trend is mobile phones.

Know the latest trends in your market by watching the news, stalking social media, and conducting business studies.

According to business experts, Nokia was once hailed as the best mobile phone in the world due to its robust features. The customers back then loved how sturdy the phone was no matter how many times it fell on the ground.

However, the company felt too confident nothing will break their business apart. Until the rise of iPhone came. Steve Jobs introduced the first smartphone – iPhone in 2007. Jobs’ brilliant idea to incorporate net browsing on phone became a huge success that it changed the mobile industry. The same is true with Facebook replacing Friendster as the most popular social media platform.

Audit Your Internal Operations

If you don’t see any external factors that threaten your business, it’s time to reassess your internal culture. Sometimes the toxicity or flaws you have in your internal operations might become the threat to your business. One notable example of this is what happened at OCP. OCP is the giant phosphate business and plays a great role in Morocco’s economy.

The management also embraced change by #switchtodigital and incorporated cutting-edge technology – which improved the company’s productivity and operations.

The business faced a potentially existential crisis last 2016 due to poor management and high turnovers. However, the CEO Mostafa Terrab orchestrated a response to counter the impending threat. He completely reimagined the company’s internal culture and let the knowledge, ideas, and expertise of the staff – especially the millennials to take part in the business operations. The CEO called this the “Le Mouvement.” Although the public was skeptical about the success of reimagining its culture, OCP has survived the said change and is able to strive in the age of new disruption.

Solve Your Challenges

Now that you’ve recognized the external factors that threaten the survival of your business, you need to tap your team to discuss your current strategies. Identify those outdated strategies and discard them before it’s too late. At the same time, you should brainstorm with your team for new ideas, products, services, or innovations you can offer to your customers to counter these threats.

You should review your business strategies and methodologies with your team to discuss how you can tackle change.

For example, PepsiCo offered new and innovative products for its health-conscious customers. Pepsi offered new products with less sugar, saturated fats, and salt and launched “Performance with Purpose” to offer healthier drinks to the public.

Fortunately, this put their irate customers at ease, and the company was able to divert an impending sales loss. If not, their company would surely suffer from this devastating disruption. The same is true with Coca-Cola offering a Coke Zero drink.

Embracing Changes

All in all, the business experts say embracing changes is the key to the survival of your business. So instead of being inept to it, you should take this opportunity to determine what’s lacking in your product and how you can improve it to offer better services to your customers.

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