The business lessons we have all been able to learn the last decade are no longer incremental, they are fundamental. As we have seen industries being disrupted and behemoths of companies fall, we are left with a few profound pieces of insight that will shape the businesses of the future. One of those lessons is that power has firmly shifted to consumers. In the age of digitization and a complex myriad of (and getting increasingly more complicated) ways consumers consume, react, and interact, and promote or demonize businesses, consumers can truly make or break companies. We see this in how powerful reviews are, how impactful viral marketing is, and the way consumer activism has put businesses on notice.

Consumer’s Voting Power

With consumers feeling more in control of how their vote per dollar is impacting businesses, the standards for companies are being raised. No longer is it OK for businesses to provide products and services as-is, every single detail will be scrutinized and asked ‘why’ things are the way they are. So, relying on that ‘things have always worked that way’ will not be a viable attitude going forward. Consumers will ask why things can’t be easier, cheaper, more productive, and if not met with a satisfactory answer, they will move on.

Status Quo No More

This is why it’s crucial that every business does some serious soul-searching and tries to figure out how far (or how close) they are from their end-users. And that’s easier said than done. It’s not something you can capture by sending out a customer survey. It’s not something you can do by hiring a bunch of business consultants. No, this is not about just listening to your consumers, it’s about understanding your consumers even better than they do themselves and uncovering an itch that requires scratching before they even know it existed. If there were only one lesson learned, then that lesson should be that ‘status quo’ is equal to demise and that it only requires one innovative solution to change the whole industry.

Shedding For Agility

And if your company isn’t yet doing this soul-searching, you will need to get into gear. You need every layer in your company shedding off distractions and red tape, to collaboratively provide input into where the company should be heading. And in most (or all) cases that involve a departure from what you as a company did yesterday. It might mean shedding supporting functions to outsourcing and let financial consulting firms take care of processes that inhibit creativity. It is a relentless asking ‘why’ things are the way they are, it’s avoiding looking at your competitors to decide where the bar is, it is deciding that the bar should be way, way higher.

Because that’s what it is now, consumers come first. People would say: “didn’t consumers always come first?” Yes, initially. But then we got busy with scaling, raising capital, getting listed on the stock exchanges and then shareholder value. Now is the age of reckoning, it doesn’t matter if you’re big or small, the consumers will decide who survives.