The status quo is the idea of keeping current affairs unchanged, even when change is necessary. So, what drives someone to maintain the status quo? Many times, it has to do with inexperience to what’s available, unawareness of inefficiencies, disinterest in taking responsibility for the initiative, or something deeper like fear. Without change, your business can fall behind as the world around you continue to evolve with technology, automation, and bringing in highly skilled workers. If it starts to affect customer experience, customers will have little to no incentive to be loyal to your business, making the status quo not appealing or competitive.

How risky is sticking to the status quo? It’s very risky. Those who stick to the status quo may face these four problems.

1. Out of date skills

2. Employees are the heart and soul of your company. If you’re maintaining the status quo, training and development, team-building exercises, coaching programs, or upskilling likely haven’t been a priority, putting them and your business at a disadvantage. By not showing them a vision for the future and a way for career growth, you risk losing good employees and having your company become stagnant.

3. Wasting time on manual work

4. Manual tasks can cost thousands of hours and dollars, depending on the amount of manual work. It creates an environment where people are just busy doing mundane tasks, creating a breeding ground for human error and taking valuable time away from doing tasks that better the company’s bottom line. It doesn’t benefit you or your team to be busy for the sake of being busy.

5. Expensive multiple systems

6. Businesses might have multiple systems to address siloed issues. When there isn’t a single source of truth to your data you are creating an environment where errors are inevitable to happen. How did you choose so many different solutions? Maybe it’s because they were advised by a vendor or a close friend, but no matter the case, it’s likely that they didn’t have the full picture regarding the current issues. It’s necessary to account for integration, process improvement, and scalability when selecting technology or else it’ll end up becoming expensive and inefficient. It can also confuse the team.

7. A false understanding of your customer’s experience

8. Customer demand can change in the blink of an eye but keeping the status quo may mean the business doesn’t truly understand what the customer’s experience is like. If this is the case, then they’re skating on thin ice. Customers want to shop and purchase from businesses with ease, and without a seamless experience, they will tend to take their business elsewhere.

Mainstream Risk There are a few misconceptions when it comes to choosing technology. It may seem like a ton of work to hire an expert to help you pick out a piece of technology. Why not just choose a company you’re familiar with or one that many people use? Because making a decision without collecting business requirements, mapping technology stacks, and realigning business processes is dangerous. Just because it’s backed by a big-name company doesn’t mean it’s right for you and your needs. We see it all the time, and for many, it turns out to be a failure. The other thing you need to remember is the daily steps and tasks you do can easily be forgotten. Those are the things we capture on a map. Anyone willing to give you a solution to fix your business issues without collecting all the facts is simply giving you their best guess. It may work sometimes, but this kind of advice will catch up with you sooner or later.

Advice

We recommend that you continuously find ways to improve your business and do the work upfront to prevent these problems from arising. Keeping the status quo can hinder you in the long run. One way to keep your business on the competitive front is to look at companies within your industry. Identify what they are doing successfully and replicate it within your own business.

You don’t want to be an exact carbon copy of that company. Even though you’re both very similar, you still have different needs, corporate cultures, customer experiences, and business requirements, to name a few. A great example of this is big box stores in different locations. Are they the same store? Yes, but also no. Stores may sell the same items and have the same branding, but local leadership will vary, affecting how each is managed.

One way we work with you is by walking you through our extensive process to get a clear and accurate picture of your business and its inefficiencies. Once we go through the process mapping, collecting all the information, understanding business requirements, and engaging with your team, we can begin to address viable solutions to help alleviate these issues within your business.