Reinvent your business model to avoid being left out

The entire current situation has led us to a very complicated scenario that has exposed the shortcomings of many companies in terms of digital transformation. In other cases, despite being businesses that have worked very well with their online presence, it is the model itself that suffers from the limitations of governments and markets. 

Given this, there are companies that choose to stop, wait for normality to resume and evaluate damages. Others, on the contrary, take action and reinvent themselves from the ground up, using the resources they have and adapting to new needs and cases allowed by law. 

For IKEA, the base of everything is in its retail stores. In fact, they have always been very reluctant to sell online. 

In this blog, we have long devoted ourselves to analyze the successful story of IKEA, a company that sells much more than furniture because it has been able to focus on the user and turn the shopping experience into something very complete, almost a family event. 

Part of that experience is curiously found in gastronomy. It seems that they have thought at length about how to maintain the relationship with the customer. For this reason, they have reached an agreement with Just Eat to deliver their usual knuckle and meatballs home, among other Swedish delicacies. 

Food delivery is one of the sectors that have been most reinforced during this crisis. For many restaurants and bars, there is no alternative to total closure, which means little help. 

Instagram has launched an initiative that can be very useful for establishments that are delivering food directly to customers' places. This is a sticker that, once configured, allows purchases to be made directly from the Stories: one more step towards selling on Instagram that had already started with shoppable tags. 

Let's put aside food and think about other types of sectors. Nannyfy is a tool to hire caregivers for children. But of course, these babysitters right now cannot go to homes, so everything would lead towards closure. 

To avoid shutting down digitally, they have proposed a series of new services that allow them to maintain contact with children while they play or do homework online, assisted by their staff. 

Yes, we do. We are going to talk about food companies, which are the queens of this situation. Because company and social events are stopped-bye bye to wedding season, for instance, many catering companies are closed from one day to the next.  

Considering the fact that there are not many promising expectations for mass meetings, but many individual users are locked in their places… reorganizing seems clear: We have to sell to individual clients to try to reduce the effect of the crisis. 

Even the case of businesses like  Catering en casa, that already offered this service, have had to reorganize. In general terms, they worked with at least 12 dinner guests at home (what is impossible today)They have launched a ad hoc menu during the lockdown with a lower price and quantities according to the new reality.  

Of course, there is also a B2B business, not everything has to be sold to individuals (or B2C). Keep in mind that all those companies that are reconverted will also find new needs to cover and that they had not initially considered. 

An example related to this post and several of the cases we have discussed, we can mention the company specialized in packaging for stores and shops Kartox. It  is giving a special boost to its line of boxes and trays for home delivery that, as we say, it experiences a great demand due to all those establishments that either did not provide this service or were not required in the same measure.

Finally, and to conclude, just remind you that we live in times when everyone who can help should give a hand as best they can. 

Within this transformation of your company, surely there is some space to exercise corporate social responsibility and make life a little easier for others (this is something that always returns to the company in the form of more loyal users and a stronger brand image).