Wednesday 4 December 2013

Managing uncertainty amidst the chaos

At a time when Tesco looks worse, Sainsbury’s are racing back to former glories, Boots, a basket-case only a few years ago but now looking global, Lidl stocking lobsters, and a virtual collapse in demand-growth, most NAMs could be excused for wanting to await a settling down in the market and the emergence of familiar patterns….

However, proactive NAMs know that the ability to cope with the current conditions determines real success in account management.

In other words, treating a flatline market as normal, and factoring risk into trade strategies has to be a way forward.

This means acknowledging that any growth has to come at the expense of the competition, requiring competitive profiling via a buying mix analysis.

It also means facing up to ‘permanent uncertainty’ by conducting a risk analysis for key options and initiatives. In practice this means exploring the impact on the business (high, medium or low), and chance of occurrence (high, medium or low) and developing contingency plans where things going wrong have high impact or a high chance of occurrence, or both.

Uncertainty can then be recognised for what it is, merely a stage in market development…    

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