Nine thoughts: How should companies change in 2023?

The economic winter has not ended, the collapse of the macro environment has not stopped, and the so-called retaliatory consumption wave mentioned by experts has not appeared. Both the consumption level and consumer confidence have been declining, and the development of enterprises is becoming more and more difficult year by year. The author of the following article brings us nine thoughts on enterprises. Let's take a look.

01

Some people say that 2023 will be a year of rapid development for enterprises as the economy picks up and the epidemic subsides. I am personally not optimistic about this. The economic winter has not ended, the collapse of the macro environment has not stopped, and the so-called retaliatory consumption boom in the mouths of experts has not appeared. Both the consumption level and consumer confidence have been declining.

The business is getting harder every year. At this time, the innovation and breaking the circle of enterprises are particularly important. When it comes to breaking the circle, we have to mention creating hot products. Many people think that creating hot products is about price, and driving sales capacity with quantity.

In the past, it might have worked, and it was just the icing on the cake. But now the core should be to target the key pain points or hidden needs of users, then to have a superior experience, then to have rich and frequent usage scenarios, and finally to have an eye-catching price-performance ratio.

Creating a hit product is not just to stimulate sales, but more importantly to drive the brand through the hit product and achieve a larger-scale market breakthrough.

02

There is no doubt that 2023 will still be a year for enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency, proceeding steadily and achieving speed in a slow manner.

To reduce costs, we cannot just cut costs blindly. We need to break down all enterprise costs into the smallest granularity, accurately identify the sectors that can reasonably reduce costs, and optimize them.

To increase efficiency, on the one hand, optimize the original growth model, sort out each business process and conversion logic, optimize point-to-point, and improve conversion efficiency; more importantly, open up your own second growth curve and develop a new business model.

Remember: increasing efficiency will inevitably reduce costs, but reducing costs will not necessarily increase efficiency.

03

By the way, I have one more opinion about efficiency improvement.

Generally speaking, efficiency improvement means improving efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency means doing things in the right way and achieving goals efficiently; effectiveness means going in the right direction and doing the right things.

Middle-level managers and ordinary employees should focus on improving efficiency, while executives and bosses should participate in optimizing overall efficiency, but don't focus solely on this. Spend more energy on improving effectiveness .

This should be the biggest cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

04

I believe that under this year's environment, more corporate managers, especially middle managers, will start to compete with each other on who gets off work later, who has more meetings, who works more overtime, and who does more work...

There is no way. Everyone wants the entire team to speak with results, but results are not so easy to get and may not be achieved. The things mentioned above are simple, direct and visible.

It is obvious that this is internal friction within the team. The problem is not with a certain person, but the atmosphere of the entire company. This is really unacceptable. The rampant "formalism" will only make management meaningless and make employees exhausted .

05

Writer Liu Run said: "Between thinking and getting, there is a gap of 'doing'.

We like to maintain stability, hesitate in the face of things, and always think about waiting a little longer, and then I will do it. However, do not underestimate the harm caused by waiting, and do not overestimate the patience of time with you.

What often separates people is waiting and not daring to take the first step. In most cases, this is not because of lack of ability or waiting for an opportunity, but rather hesitation about starting, fear of uncertainty, and worry about the outcome.

06

I see many people debating online: Do today’s news media professionals still have the ability to think independently?

My view is that there is definitely one. This question is wrong. It should be: Do today's journalists still insist on independent thinking and objective reporting?

Needless to say, there are actually many people who have become traffic media people. It's not that they don't have the ability to think independently, nor that they don't know the importance of news truth, but that they understand traffic too well. They don't dig deep for the truth, but read words from a script; they don't pursue objectivity, but deliberately cater to the audience, and even attract attention.

Then again, do you still have the ability to think independently? Or do you just want to see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe?

07

There is a huge gap in the thinking of people in different positions. Most of the Douyin operators think about: how to shoot videos, how to write better scripts, how to optimize titles, how to make cover photos, how to decorate the store, what details to pay attention to during live broadcasts, how to optimize creative ads, how to increase click-through rates, etc. These are basically all details, right?

The more I think about it, the harder it becomes; the more I fiddle with it, the more headache I get; and the results are minimal.

I talked with several big Douyin traffic operators some time ago (they are not the scammers, but the really powerful ones, with hundreds of millions of cases on their hands). It turned out that the problems we rack our brains to think about every day, they don’t care at all, are too lazy to think about them, and are even not as clear as we are. What are they thinking about? They are thinking:

• Is your company determined to enter the TikTok market?
• How big is your plate and how long does it last?
• How much do you plan to invest? Do you want to just max it out?
• What is the business logic and architecture like?

They think this is a very simple matter. To put it bluntly, it depends on whether you really want to do it and how much money you are prepared to spend. As long as you are willing to invest, everything else is not a problem. If there is no traffic, you can increase the traffic; if there is no talent, you can recruit talent. Once you have found the right benchmark case, you can just follow it. It is not difficult.

You see, we complain about how difficult it is every day, but the words they say most often are "easy" and "no problem".

08

Nowadays, people say "slacking off", "playing rotten", "lying flat". I think this is a new product of the development of the times, or a way of life, and there is no need to argue about it endlessly.

With this attitude towards life, I think there should be a recognition that: you can slack off, but you can’t be really bad.

Whether I am slacking off or lying down, I should be able to actively control it. I can lie down or stand up immediately; it is not because I am too bad and passive. The former is called decompression, and the latter is degeneration.

Just as Mr. Qian Xuesen said: Not having a sword in your hand and having a sword but not using it are two different things.

09

Wu Xiaobo said in his New Year's Eve speech: " If the sky never gets bright, then survive in the dark. Once you see the light, take off immediately. "

Very good! No matter how bad the environment is, no matter how uncertain the future is, you can't just wait to die. Whether you want to change or stay the same, you have to insist on doing what you should do every day and even make more attempts.

It is better to not have a general for ten years than not have a pawn for a day.

Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: WeChat public account: "Mumu Laozei (ID: mumuseo)"