Making the deal, a diamonddeal

This week Kate spoke at the Hart Brown Annual Economic Forum to discuss BREXIT. Something that businesses worried about initially but now are looking to practically think about how it will work in the future for them. It’s not just about asking what does BREXIT mean? It is about looking at what opportunities are out there. Whatever ‘The Deal’ is as a result of BREXIT negotiations, how can we make it a diamonddeal? We say, see the challenges, work with opportunities and address the new realities. Then, work with it!   The Challenges Kate spoke about the top three challenges businesses currently face.

1. Economic uncertainty, making it difficult to know what to expect and how to plan.
2. Disruption in the curre
3. nt ways we do business. New business models, changing work patterns, and the redundancy of some knowledge-based jobs means businesses are having to think about new ways of doing things to keep up.
4. The pace of change. As result of the challenges businesses face feelings of uncertainty and fear of the unknown, and how or when will this occur?

The Opportunity At diamond we like to focus on the opportunities. Kate’s Top 3 Opportunities:

1. Opening of New Markets. Access to new markets brings opportunity for decreased costs, increased accessibility and widening of a client base!
2. People Importance - Lets get personal! Customers like human stories hence they like a relatable brand too. This may be a chance to move away from the globalised brand ideas and instead have personality led interactions.
3. ‘Fortune Favours The Brave’. Previously used in battle times, this proverb is relevant to the business battlefield. Be bold, make decisions and be brave - this can lead to success.

Things are changing, but we can harness it if we are bold enough to take the opportunities. To take up these opportunities we need to understand our new environment or – as Kate calls it - our ‘New Reality’, and the key considerations businesses need to make as a result of this. Then, learn how to work with it.   The New Reality Business models have changed. They need to be adaptable and dynamic. For example the non-asset based 3PL model means it is easier to adapt and gives us the chance to offer the cheapest possible costs. People are your No. 1 resource. We ensure teamdiamond are a cut above the rest to carry the diamond brand wherever they go. All having Shared Success©. The third new reality - good service is no longer good enough! Customers now want things faster, cheaper and good quality. This means businesses need to be on the ball at all times! Fourth: the middle ground is difficult. Remaining artisan or fully scaling up is a better choice. Staying in the middle means it’s difficult to reach the same efficiency and quality to compete with the larger firms, but also difficult to have the boutique and individual feel smaller businesses achieve. The final New Reality is that innovation and creativity need to be at the core of your business. Business leaders need to think ahead, look at where value can be added and keep an eye on the market for any missing links.   So, businesses need to champion what supports their growth, but also work with the new opportunities that arise. That’s what we will do, to get our diamonddeal!