Business Development Coffee Shop Franchise - Part Three: Transformation of client relationship & migration to digital business models.

The original project focus when the project was placed at the beginning of 2020 was to develop a system to increase customer satisfaction and maintain it at a high level. During past years, our customer was in a crisis. Difficulties in the management of the company led to a loss of the profitability and customer satisfaction indices.

With the outbreak of the pandemic in Brazil in March 2020, the project focus expanded. In addition to the focus on customer satisfaction, the new situation was to be used to develop possible new business models using digital tools and fundamentally increase customer loyalty. The general idea could be summarized as follows: more agility through digital services.

Is it possible to design projects with open results?

That is not easy.

Especially not if the initial situation was an acute crisis in very recent times. The threatening dynamics made open- ended thinking almost impossible. So you can only move forward from success to success.

This time the project definition was more differentiated. It was not about acute crisis management, but rather about a strategy to consolidate the position, or better, a further expansion using the prevailing crisis scenarios in Brazil. It was clear, however, that no enthusiastic adventures should be undertaken and that any strategic assumption must be robustly backed by operational-tactical measures. The implementation of these tactical measures should then also define the next steps or be used to adapt the strategy.

How dangerous can paradigms be in a crisis?

Can an industry-wide paradigm lead to business blindness? Under what conditions has a paradigm developed?

If you think about costs too late, you ruin your company. Those who always think about costs too early kill creativity. Cost-cutting measures must be taken when you are earning a lot of money. Once you're in the red, it's too late. Many years of experience can sometimes narrow the view. There are people who think they know the bird very well because they have seen the egg from which it crawled out.

Sometimes you have to pull out trees to see if the root is still there. After many years of the paradigm of uncompromising outsourcing of all functions, we realize after many projects that this way has to be decided anew in every case and has to be checked at regular intervals for its still existing advantages. Paradigms must not be retained for convenience.