Driving the New Normal: A Three-Phased Analysis to Spark Innovation
Kayla Rodriguez Graff, MBA, offers insight into how entrepreneurs can think ahead and drive change for their companies and their industries.
COVID-19 will shape the future of your company. While it is natural during crises to default to survival mode, it is more critical than ever to lift our eyes to the horizon to see, and more importantly shape our new normal. So, you must decide: sit back and let your path be determined, or drive the change to create opportunity. At SweetBio, after we ensured the safety of our team, we became drivers. To do so, we completed a three-phased analysis that has helped to generate innovative ideas and approaches that have strengthened our market positioning.
Phase 1: Understand the macro-environment. To win in an industry, you must habitually assess changes to identify when opportunities are created. COVID-19 upended almost every industry norm, making this analysis quite interesting. One of my favorite tools to evaluate the macro-environment is the classic PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) analysis. This tool helps to categorize large changes and provide a global state-of-the-state. For example, in analyzing changes driven by COVID-19 that impact our industry of wound care, we considered changes to Center for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) policy, inelasticity of spending in the wound care industry, the urgent need to reduce hospital resources for wound care treatments, and an overnight acceptance of telehealth. By thinking through these changes in the macro-environment, we can start to understand the needs for the new industry norms.
Phase 2: Identify emerging leaders. When major macro-environment shifts occur, several organizations, companies, and individuals rise up and quickly organize, synthesize and disseminate critical information for the industry. Early on, this information tends to be fact-based, free and easily accessible — a perfect combination for you to get up to speed efficiently and effectively. These leaders will be assessing the big obstacles facing your industry and driving changes (e.g. CMS policy) that can immediately improve business conditions (e.g. telemedicine acceptance). Follow them, align with them and learn as fast as you can. At SweetBio, we have invested dozens of hours watching webinars and reading relevant articles that have sparked these new ideas and innovations.
Phase 3: Re-discover your value. Now that you have a good pulse on the industry changes, it is time to look internally. My favorite tool for this more tailored evaluation is the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. While a PEST looks globally, the SWOT looks locally and can help further refine new opportunities. For example:
- Strengths: Go back to your roots — what does your company stand for? What is your vision? What do you want to be known for? Look here for new ways to resonate with your customer.
- Weaknesses: If you were a new entrant in your industry today, how would you disrupt yourself?
- Opportunities: From your PEST analysis, what are the new ways of servicing your customer that were not available before? How can your current product/service be used in new ways or in new markets?
- Threats: What are your competitors doing? Look at their social media channels, subscribe to their newsletters, keep a close eye on their response.
In business, crises are the ultimate equalizer and level the playing field in industries. Large companies need and want to adapt but struggle to do so quickly. This creates a strategic opportunity for startups — we are nimble and uniquely equipped for innovation. This moment will matter in your company’s history, so I challenge you to think differently, leverage this three-phased analysis and jump in the driver’s seat. The future is in our hands and I am looking forward to shaping it with you.
Kayla Rodriguez Graff, MBA is the CEO and co-founder of SweetBio, a Memphis, Tennessee based, market-ready medical device company. Kayla is a thought-provoking business leader specializing in disruptive business models. Her diverse background includes 5 years of medical device venture development and 6 years customer experience and operations strategy at Target Corp., and is supported by her MBA and Cornell Project Management education. She brings a fresh perspective to the medical device space and her ability to build critical relationships and set strategy will propel SweetBio as they enter national commercialization. Kayla is passionate about policy and advocacy for women and diverse entrepreneurs, as well as the life science industry and serves on several boards supporting these efforts. Most importantly, Kayla is married to her soul mate, Kevin, and proud mom to her 3-year-old son, Maddox, and 5-month-old son, Hudson.
