Latest news with #marketinstability
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
B2B Forecasting Is A Guess; Responsiveness Is A Strategy
Nikos Lemanis is Strategy Director at Luxid Group, an award-winning, agile team of creatives, technologists and marketing strategists. We find ourselves in unpredictable times, and for B2B marketers, this presents a significant challenge. Until recently, B2B was enjoying a long period of relative stability, coupled with the kind of advancements in channels, technologies and data that gave marketers ever-increasing capabilities to do their jobs. But now, macroeconomic factors such as global political instability and volatile tariff policies are increasingly affecting supply chains, market demand and the shape of the competitive landscape. And behavioral factors such as complex and increasingly AI-powered self-service buyer journeys are impacting the quality of, and access to, valuable audience insights and purchase intent data. The technological advancements that once provided a level of certainty for B2B marketers are now arguably contributing to instability. All of this means that we're seeing an increase in factors that B2B marketers simply can't control, and these directly affect their ability to forward-plan with the level of certainty they have taken for granted for many years. This isn't a temporary blip. The rules have changed, and they aren't changing back. This means that the market has to rethink the long-established practice of annual planning. The traditional model of annual marketing budgets is based on an outdated belief in predictability: a series of assumptions about the coming 12 months that rely on the stability of past experiences, analysis of current trends and availability of resources. Although many businesses still cling to this well-worn path, the time has come for B2B marketers to pivot away from trying to rigidly forecast the future and toward building systems and processes that respond rapidly to it. Rigidity Is The New Enemy Of B2B Marketing Rigidity is the key word here. It's not the 12-month planning cycle itself that's problematic; it's the built-in rigidity that so often comes with it. Rigidity locks in spend, regardless of shifting returns. It promotes inertia and prevents the agility to see or act on timely opportunities. And it leads to delays in reacting to downturns, crises or changes in the market. There are some very clear examples of this in B2C. For over a decade, Netflix publicly resisted the idea of including advertising in its streaming platform. But in 2021, its subscriber and revenue growth slowed. The company's response was to announce a new ad-supported tier and launch it within six months. It was a remarkably fast timeline for a major platform shift and a brave reversal of strategy. And it worked. Advertisers have been eager to get on board, and the tier is popular with users. It's been estimated that the company's advertising business could earn $10 billion in annual revenue by 2030. The lesson? Be prepared and able to pivot quickly and decisively from some of your core beliefs and strategies. And be prepared to act when your assumptions break. 'Flexibility And Agility' Is The New Mantra Of B2B Marketing Most businesses don't have a business model like Netflix that could demand such a seismic shift, but it illustrates the level of flexibility and agility that all businesses should aim for in their planning model. So, what does embracing flexibility and agility in B2B planning look like in practice? At the most fundamental level, make sure you have access to actionable data to aid your decision making, and that your budget review cadence is more than a box-ticking exercise. At a campaign level, include built-in flexibility that is tied to performance data, with realistic allowances for downtime if and when a change of direction is needed. Create cross-functional budget pools that allow marketers to pull funds based on evolving priorities. You could even consider broadening this to promote collaborative budgets with sales, IT and customer success. Embrace the unknown and put the pieces in place to make fast and accurate decisions about how to apply your budget. It's no longer about predicting the path. It's about building the muscle to change direction without losing momentum. Of course, certain elements—your brand—need to retain consistency. Agility doesn't equal a lack of identity. Although you may see the need to change what you align your brand with over time, quickly pivoting its essence and ethos is rarely the way to do that effectively. The entire business must become comfortable with the fact that rigid 12-month planning is guesswork and that it's not conducive to success. Responsiveness needs to be institutionalized, and there are ways to promote that and to overcome the doubts of stakeholders who are uncomfortable with the shift. Clearly document responsive budgeting in your plans to show that it stems from robust thinking rather than a lack of confidence or foresight. Include scenario planning ('what happens to this budget if ...'), regular review and reallocation windows, and exactly how you will govern flexibility responsibly. Directly incorporate the finance team into your agile planning and reporting processes. Get It Right, And You Will Have More Control Your marketing team might perceive that this shift comes with a loss of control or focus. You will need to take them along on the journey. Show them that, through continuous monitoring and optimization, they will actually have more control, with additional freedom to pivot and take advantage of timely opportunities that move the needle. This evolution isn't just a process shift; it's a mental shift. And it's about managing the organizational expectations that stop you from breaking from the status quo. Real strategy now lives in how fast you can adapt, not how well you can guess. And success won't belong to the best planners; it will belong to those who have a robust mechanism for responsiveness. Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Fast Company
02-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
How I navigate uncertainty: A strategy for survival and sanity
In uncertain markets, survival is the first strategy. When I'm facing volatility—especially the kind we're seeing now—I look for something I can count on. With the tariff situation and a general sense of instability in the market, the challenge is clear. But it's not only about tariffs. It's more about how to identify some level of certainty to serve the business purpose, whether for growth, cost reduction, or any particular focus you may have at a given time. In our business, we sell to telcos, MSOs, and data centers. Many industries and market sectors are uncertain right now, but one thing I do see as certain is that the AI -driven data center market is growing, no matter what policy comes. That's a point of certainty. But to get there, I start by understanding the uncertainty. What's the worst-case scenario? This is the first question I ask during a time of uncertainty. Take the tariff situation, for example—the worst case is that you can't rely on the existing supply chain. From there, I ask: What's the highest tariff rate we can absorb? If the answer is none, then maybe we need to stop that part of the business. Every probable option should be on the table for consideration at this point, whether I am mentally prepared to accept it or not. It's not easy—moving a supply chain is not going to happen overnight. Some of the questions worth asking include: What certainty can be identified from the customer end? What certainty can be identified within the supply chain? Where's the flexibility? That's the kind of thinking I follow. Can the supplier and the customer take some of the pain out of it together with us? If we can work together as a whole ecosystem, maybe we can still make the business sustainable. After understanding the worst-case scenario, I try to work backwards to figure out the best thing I could do. First of all, what can happen if tariffs skyrocket? Can we afford that situation? If not, then we may have to be ready to close that business, or at least try to pivot. Are we ready for this? If not, we'd better prepare ourselves for this worst-case scenario first. Once you understand the worst-case scenario and are prepared for it, you may start working towards the best scenario by identifying the opportunities that may be hidden behind the challenges. For my company, that means focusing on the AI-driven data center infrastructure business for growth. We're not abandoning other business lines, but we're prioritizing what's most certain right now in terms of the market drive. That's on the business side—on the target customer segment perspective. We may do this scenario planning from the worst towards the best by working within the entire ecosystem—the customer end, the supply end, and internally. How can we absorb that extra cost? That's how we try to maintain the business. One part is long-term. The other part is near-term mitigation. Of course, we can do other things like lobbying, but being a small or mid-sized business, you need to be able to survive first. A MENTAL MODEL FOR DECISION-MAKING To make sense of complexity, I rely on a simple framework I call the point-line theorem, where I take a pen and look at it first from the tip, then from the side. It helps me think through things from various perspectives to identify the best possible solution to a given problem at that given time. The first principle of this theorem is the incompleteness of perspectives. For instance, if you take n pictures of any object, I can always take a new one (or the n +1 one) to show you a different one. That's why brainstorming is so important. If you're working by yourself, then fine—brainstorm by yourself. But if you can talk to your customer, your client, your supplier, then do it. The more people, the better, because everyone has a different experience and a different background, and can give new, fresh perspectives. The second principle of the point-line theorem is what I call the symmetry of the perspectives: Who is right, the point or the line? I say they're symmetric, so you cannot objectively say which one is better. It depends on how you see it. That helps me welcome new ideas—even ones that seem contradictory or on the opposite side of what we already have. The third principle is the breaking of symmetry. If there's a hole in the table and you want to keep the pen on the table, the line perspective works. But if you want the pen to drop into the hole, then the point perspective works. So, when a problem is presented or when a goal is identified, you can distinguish which perspective is most useful under this set of criteria you have. After the brainstorming session, I try to put everything on the wall, even if it's messy. Then I pick the best that serves the purpose. Take into account the available perspectives and the goal you want to achieve—that's how I make a decision. FIND SANITY BEFORE CERTAINTY You cannot brainstorm forever. You cannot keep doing it unless you can afford it. So, when it's time to make a decision, sometimes you just have to make it. In the tariff example, this isn't about how to deal with the tariffs specifically. It's about using that example to open up your mind. When you live in that uncertain world, what can you do to get some certainty, or sanity, back and to move forward? The goal isn't to eliminate uncertainty—it's to find the clarity that lets you act anyway.
