Good Advice for Bad Times?

Following the lead of Dave Kellogg (i.e. shamelessly copying), here’s a link to an excellent article on "Counter-Intuitive Tactics for Bad Times".

The article is for high-tech industries looking to weather the crisis. I’ve copied Dave’s paraphrasing below, swapping his comments with mine, related to SAP BusinessObjects:

Invest in product development, not sales. (BI is a big investment focus of SAP. We’re integrating BI across the suite, and with the rest of the SAP technology, and innovating with the BusinessObjects labs.)

Turn salespeople into consultants. (SAP sales and consulting teams have deep industry expertise, and we’re training them how to get the best out of the new analytics on offer.)

Put your customer first. (There is increasing focus on making BI easier to by integrating it into industry and role-specific solutions)

Build value through relationships as well as products. (I believe that SAP has the strongest relationships with its customers in the industry — and you don’t get that overnight)

Look for evergreen and counter-cyclical sectors. (As explained in a previous post, analysts consider BI a "recession proof technol…

Following the lead of Dave Kellogg (i.e. shamelessly copying), here’s a link to an excellent article on "Counter-Intuitive Tactics for Bad Times".

The article is for high-tech industries looking to weather the crisis. I’ve copied Dave’s paraphrasing below, swapping his comments with mine, related to SAP BusinessObjects:

Invest in product development, not sales. (BI is a big investment focus of SAP. We’re integrating BI across the suite, and with the rest of the SAP technology, and innovating with the BusinessObjects labs.)

Turn salespeople into consultants. (SAP sales and consulting teams have deep industry expertise, and we’re training them how to get the best out of the new analytics on offer.)

Put your customer first. (There is increasing focus on making BI easier to by integrating it into industry and role-specific solutions)

Build value through relationships as well as products. (I believe that SAP has the strongest relationships with its customers in the industry — and you don’t get that overnight)

Look for evergreen and counter-cyclical sectors. (As explained in a previous post, analysts consider BI a "recession proof technology":)

Cut costs with a scalpel, not a hatchet. (And that takes business intelligence. I like the phrase "measure twice, cut once" — cutting costs it’s too important to get wrong the first time, you don’t get a do-over. And I like Dave’s comment: "My first reaction to an across-the-board cut is that management either couldn’t or didn’t take the time to figure out a more strategic way to do its job".)