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The importance diversifying your business in 2017

Tuesday 21 February 2017, 5:19PM

By Adam Jay

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Diversification will be key in 2017
Diversification will be key in 2017 Credit: Adam Jay

AUCKLAND

Adapt or die: a truism often ignored in the business world. As creatures of habit we enjoy sticking to what we know and what we do best. When business is booming we tend to put all of our focus into the product or service which is giving us the greatest returns. However, any change in your particular market put you at great risk of rapid failure - as all of you eggs lay in your single basket.

For small to medium sized business – diversification is key.  In 2017, clients expect more from their service providers, they prefer the “one-stop-shop”, rather than dealing with a multitude of separate suppliers.  Diversifying your product offering should be well thought out and executed with care. 

A business owner needs to be able to juggle their commitment to new ventures without neglecting their core product or service offering.

But how does one even start to decide which new areas of business to expand into?

While for the small business owner - busy is good, being constantly under the pump tends to create tunnel vision. You can’t keep a close eye on changes in the market, emerging trends, new technologies or customer attitudes when your head is buried in the sand.

A simple place to start is surveying existing clients on other products or services they are in the market for and then move to offering these services alongside your core business.

Albany based printing company, CMD Print note a combination of client communication and persistent research into emerging printing technology as the two keys to their diversification success.

“We found that building future success comes from building and fostering good relationships with existing clients. It is through this relationship that we began to take note of others services our clients were after”.

Based on their client experience, CMD Print looked to enhance the user experience by offering both design and distribution service – all under the one roof.  While diversifying their offering was successful, the real success came from research into emerging printing technologies and practices.

“As printing technology improved, we were able to print more intricate designs on a wider range of materials – this allowed us to offer brand new promotional material to our existing clients, and be front runners in the NZ printing market”.

The key to a successful diversification strategy is having a solid core service and then building around this.  Be attentive to your existing client bases needs and adapt to provide additional services.