While there are companies that will no doubt go to the wall this year, chnaces are many of them will fail because they are operating in sunset industries and their eventual demise has simply been accelerated by today’s challenging economic conditions.
“Companies with the ability to take a holistic view of what is occurring in the economy and flex to the changing environment are more likely to succeed,” says Gary, Mediaburst’s MD. “Reviewing overheads and negotiating better terms with suppliers goes without saying, but the clever ones will be reviewing their operating models and looking for improved ways of working and communicating.”
Over 1.4 billion text messages are sent every week in Britain and a large proportion are from businesses. In 2008, text services experienced significant growth from the enterprise sectors to communicate with staff and customers, and it’s a trend that Mediaburst expects to increase throughout 2009 and beyond. “It’s a no-brainer – SMS is cheap, instant, and easy to implement. In fact, it’s a perfect recession beater,” adds Gary.
During 2009, Mediaburst also expects to see companies using SMS in smarter ways. “Their objective won’t be just one way communication, but to reduce inbound customer enquiries so they can operate with less staff. It will also be used to speed up debt collection, provide more engaging promotions for brand managers to their consumer bases, and it will be used to tap into new markets using the very device that we never leave more than 1 metre away from us,” says Gary.
