How to Use Market Research in a Recession
John Quelch suggests that market research is as important now as ever: “Recession-challenged consumers are buying less, looking for deals, or switching to different brands, product categories, or stores. Some are even changing long-held attitudes toward consumption. To many folks, filling the home with more stuff or keeping up with the Joneses is no longer appealing. As a result, the degree of uncertainty in business and consumer markets has soared. Yet, to conserve cash, most firms are reducing spending on the market research that would help manage that uncertainty. In the U.S., spending on market research has dipped for four consecutive quarters, and chief marketing officers don’t expect the situation to turn around soon. Most big consumer marketers are seeking to shave 10 to 20% off of research budgets.”

Is Your Company Brave Enough to Survive?
On Strategy Freek, tough questions were asked by Freek Vermeulen regarding businesses’ readiness to stay afloat. “First, we see quite a lot of firms display what we in management academia call ‘threat-rigidity effects.’ When under threat, facing a shortfall in performance, firms are inclined to more narrowly and firmly focus on the one thing they do well (e.g. their core product or service), stop doing other things, and become more hierarchical and top-down in terms of management control. Unfortunately, this often makes things worse, or at least prevents you from coming up with any solutions. What firms are better off doing, is opening up; exploring new sources of potential revenue and experimenting with bottom-up processes to generate such ideas and innovations.”

Think and Act Like a Nonprofit to Deepen Connections and Build Relationships
Roger Sametz of Marketing Profs notes how the tables have turned as corporations look to non-profit techniques for guidance. “A nonprofit’s mission and vision give people a reason to participate—and to believe—that’s deeper and longer lasting than any specific offering. The value proposition goes beyond fulfilling a tangible or tactical need (”I need A to do B”) to fulfill an emotional need. And that connection, when nurtured and sustained, engenders loyalty, creates advocates and ambassadors, and builds relationships that transcend transactions. Customers, participants, board members, and donors feel they are part of a shared enterprise. For a business, forging this sort of deeper connection can provide market differentiation, create a corps of enthusiastic advocates, and help distance offerings from (dreaded) commodities. (Price is less of an issue if you really believe in a company and what it’s selling.)”

5 Steps to Repurposing Your Career
My Global Career’s Amy Dorn Kopelan enumerates the things you should do if you’re planning to switch careers, like knowing your value and cultivating your network. “Despite the numbing loss of over 2.5-million jobs in 2008 – and the worst job market since WWII— young professionals, job-seekers and career changers can and do get jobs today. They are accomplishing this by adapting to a morphing workplace, determining how they can add value to the industries and jobs that matter now, and swiftly repurposing their skills.”

Just-in-Time Budgeting for a Volatile Economy
Mahmut Akten and others at the McKinsey Quarterly suggest new approaches to budgeting in an unstable environment. “Most companies find budgeting a formidable challenge even under stable conditions. Managers often spend significant amounts of time on it, only to be dismayed by how little value comes from four to six months’ effort. Under volatile conditions, when economic forecasts change from week to week, developing one reliable budget to coordinate business units and track performance for an entire fiscal year is very difficult. Following the traditional budget process may even be unproductive. There’s no easy fix, particularly for very large corporations, and companies that have tried to solve the problem don’t have much of a track record. Executives can, however, take several measures to make the process more effective: for instance, scenario planning, zero-based budgeting, rolling forecasts, and quarterly budgeting. Central to all of them is a substantial increase in the CFO’s role and a radical speeding up of the budgeting process.”