With 2020 becoming the year of infamy for a vast number of businesses, many individuals have entered 2021 with a positive focus towards rectifying their company goals and aligning their focus towards achieving growth. Due to the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, companies were each affected in their own significant ways. However, before we begin to kick off the new year and strive toward achieving growth, there are some key areas of focus each business must address.
Realigning company culture:
The realignment of company culture can manifest in goals being set to adapt to the new environment, including all operational and cultural activities being evaluated to ensure staff are still motivated to deliver on the overall company purpose and offering. COVID-19 has seen many companies adopt a new regime of remote working spaces within their workplace. Understanding how this change has affected productivity, morale, and staff growth can become imperative to moving forward with business-as-usual. For instance, miscommunication can sometimes idle operations or projects, leaving many staff members having to rectify the issue and resulting in a lack of productivity. Here at Presentation Studio, we have recognised this change, and conduct regular staff surveys and feedback processes to ensure our colleagues continue to be aligned in their goals and objectives, with no compromise on integrity or staff morale.
Staff training and upskilling:
The shift to a new work regime for many businesses has presented the challenge of staff needing to adopt new systems and processes to cater for a new way of communicating between their teams and with prospects and clients. Businesses will need to recognise how their staff are coping with this change and any new software or apps they have needed to learn during this time, and train or upskill their workforce in order to remain productive. At Presentation Studio, we use the M365 suite, including Microsoft Teams to communicate to our colleagues. However, since the pandemic, our reliance on this software has become immense. This has meant online meetings and presentations have become a normal activity for our business. However, for other businesses this technological shift may prove challenging in reaching the same engagement or impact as face-to-face presentations. Recognising this challenge and upskilling presenters to remain impactful online will lead to increased ROI when presenting to their teams or prospective clients.
Customer communication:
It is essential for companies to ensure their client confidence is maintained. In the months following January, and with the introduction of a vaccine presenting high hopes for the corporate world, it is imperative that businesses ensure their client communication is a priority to warrant growth and profitability. Making sure your client relationships are maintained is imperative to communicate your company is still conducting business as usual, and your relevance is justified within the market. Many small businesses underwent a drop in marketing activities including advertising due to the effects of COVID-19, and will be restarting these in 2020. However, it is imperative that they maintain their current client relationships to instil confidence in these partnerships and let them know they are still one of your top priorities.
Marketing activities:
Re-establishing or maintaining brand awareness will become a big goal particularly within small businesses throughout 2021. During the pandemic, the market saw a substantial increase in online shopping, with 62% of US shoppers claiming they have increased their online purchasing since the beginning of the pandemic. This data, coupled with a 60% increase in sales year-on-year for Amazon third-party sellers, suggests a significant shift to a more digital marketing-focused strategy for businesses. The increased online presence will mean businesses will need to differentiate themselves effectively from their competitors in order to remain profitable. With consumerism rapidly changing over the past year to form a new normal, companies must recognise how this affects their business and their value-proposition. The shift to a more technologically focused environment has meant e-commerce activities amongst consumers has increased substantially, and so has their brand awareness in online platforms. Recognising how this affects your business and capitalising on this trend will allow senior employees to implement a strategical focus on taking advantage of an increased exposure in an online world.
To get started on any training or upskilling in presentations for 2021, check out our training packages!