by Catia Mondlane
As far as the actual situation has been prolonged, predicting when will it stop and what would be the long term impacts hasn’t been easy, which undoubtedly forces most manufacturers to seriously rethink their operations. We are aware that for one to sell products requires money and space up front. Storing one’s inventory can be challenging around this time, especially if you have a lot of product to sell and not so many customers to buy them.
On the other hand, one needs to have enough products to fill orders and meet demands, which means that one has to invest money on products before selling them. This is particularly true if one manufactures goods or buys them for resale because selling physical products encounters shipment costs, damage losses, and theft. This is a clear picture that the period we are going through demands maximum savings and minimal expenses at all costs and effective strategies must be implemented to uplift the sales scales and maintain the level of products demand.
The first step is to become focused and writing down one’s brainstorming brilliant ideas instead of sitting down and complain about what is going on and entertaining the lamentation group won’t bring any solutions. Secondly, understand that if one sells goods, they have physical specifications and attributes that customers can easily compare products to decide what’s best for them, which means that now is the best time to make your products better by upgrading them.
On the third step one must know that products or goods offer a concrete, visible solution to customers’ problems which means that customers know exactly what they are getting, and this minimizes risk because most products are returnable and customers are more willing to trade their money for one’s problem-solving product and one doesn’t really have to come up with a big variety of different items because even with advanced or improved models, the basic product remains the same.
Last but not least, the automation era began and a part of the savings is for the future investments. Although the introduction of technology might be expensive and take time to implement successfully because of the levels of risks and uncertainty, this will actually reduce the need for humans thus the need for social distancing too. It might also lead to significant cost savings in the long term and data from automated operations would bring significant transparency to business.
Cátia Mondlane is the CEO & Founder of Isabella – Estética & Cosméticos, an innovative Mozambican cosmetic company that brings natural skin solutions based on locally sourced organic and fresh ingredients. Her brand is especially for people with sensitive skin and who want to be kind to their skin at affordable prices. She is currently based in Maputo, Mozambique.
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