There’s an old saying…”the best time to start a new business is the day after the recession ends.” The $64K question is not when will the recession end but what will the recovery look like? Will it be V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped, v-W-shaped, J-shaped, L-shaped or extended L-shaped? Which of these seven scenarios will play out? UPDATE: see cartoon on the right from March 2009
To anticipate this, we have to look at what tools do managers and entrepreneurs have to help them predict, track and measure where they and the economy are heading?
I dusted off some old notes, slides and workshop handout materials from just after post 9/11 as the economy topped out and in hindsight, was headed into a recession, triggered by the terrorist attacks on New York city and Washington. The materials were from a set of experimental workshops that I designed for Andrew Maxwell, who at the time was at the incubator / accelerator at the Innovations Foundation at the University of Toronto, when they were still located on
One workshop was on Designing Winning Business Models and the second was called 12 Tools and Techniques for Surviving Thriving and Managing in a Volatile and Turbulent Business Climate.
Could some of these same principles and lessons learned from these workshops apply to today’s recessionary / depressionary climate? Most certainly!!
Designing a robust and adaptive business model could determine if you dive, merely survive or thrive in a recession.
Some of the key points and questions from the Designing Winning Business Models workshop include the following points:
What were/are the traditional business models/ revenue models in my industry and what can I learn from them? What are the prevailing business models/ revenue models in my industry today? What can I learn from mapping my current business landscape? What’s my current business model look like and what are all the components? What are the assumptions (tacit and explicit) behind my current business model and are they still valid? robust under changing conditions? various recovery scenarios ? (V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped, v-W-shaped, J-shaped, L-shaped or extended L-shaped? ) What are the changing consumer or business values, attitudes and behaviors and are they reflected or aligned with my current business model What changes, trends, driving factors and issues are forcing me to rethink my current business model? How do I surface assumptions about the current and near-future business climate? What’s broken in my existing business model and how do I mitigate the faults and defects? How do I design a new viable system using scenario planning, systems dynamics and viable systems modeling? How do I model potential major discontinuities, wild cards, disruptions into my revenue model and business model? What were the lessons learned from the dot.com bubble, e-commerce failures and the collapse of the “green tech” and alternative energy markets? How do I mitigate that in the future from new emerging technologies. What cognitive thinking skills do I need to deploy to come up with novel and difficult to copy concepts for a brilliant new business model?
Tomorrow we’ll look at the 12 predictive tools that should be in your managerial or entrepreneurial toolkit to help you predict and design opportunity windows for both the downward leg of the recession and the upward leg of the recovery.
Walter Derzko
Smart Economy
Toronto
Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.
Related posts:
82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008 When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009? When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation
When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery
© 2005-2009 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©
Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy " The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !! To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page
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