In today’s environment of local lockdowns, work from home, go to work, no please work from home, then a business has to be as agile and flexible as possible to flourish.
So, restaurants doing takeaways is something quite frequent, but 41 London restaurants have gone even further by packing up the ingredients for a meal in a cool bag or box and cross the category boundary between restaurant and meal box – some despatch nationwide. It means that the food is freshly cooked and more flexibility as to when the various parts of the meal are eaten. (https://www.theinfatuation.com/london/guides/diy-meal-kit-delivery-takeaway-london)
As the restrictions tighten again as we enter autumn then winter, eating out at restaurants may not be as attractive as previously, but their food is, so why not?
Other companies are also having to pivot into new areas. A pivot is a smooth movement from taking the business one way into taking it another. Staff are repurposed, revenues are not as badly hit as they could have been.
But there are many companies out there who are shuffling along – they know that they have to do something to get through the next 6 months but they don’t know what or if they should. They are dragging their feet through the changes. They are being slow and not dynamic. Static not flexible.
The fear of change could be one reason why, a lack of self-belief that the pivot will work, the lack of confidence of just going for it. If, however, a business plan has been looked at for the new concept, that there are minimal set up costs for the pivot why not try it?
If you are not sure how to evaluate a new path forward for the business then reach out to a marketing consultant, and they will help you. If you need to bounce ideas off someone then ask a business mentor what do they think? It needn’t be expensive – your bank may have someone, or an hour of a consultant’s time is really quite affordable, especially as it may just save your business and who knows it could become a permanent revenue stream so that when normality returns you have a stronger, larger, more profitable business going forwards.
[issued 24 September 2020]