Ania, Head of Commercial Developments for Products/Digital at Travelex, let us in on a few secrets at her dinner recently about how established companies can adapt and thrive in a sea of startups. Here’s her top tips for maintaining your piece of the pie:
- First and foremost develop a clear strategy
- When launching digital products there needs to be differentiation from competitors’ products
- Change how you think and serve customers – don’t become stagnant in the way you view and approach your clientele
- Established brands (especially in the financial sector) should have a huge network of stores which gives them an unrivalled exposure to customers for digital products (and also keeping the cost of customer acquisition low, which is always a bonus!)
- If you’ve previously focussed on individual transactions, would it benefit your company if you switched your focus to the lifetime of customers instead? Concentrate on retaining customers as much as securing new ones.
For any ‘Big Company’ looking to respond to these challenges that startups are throwing their way, in the eyes of Ania, they ultimately need:
- the support for change at the highest level – effectively meaning the CEO needs to buy in to the plan too
- to use all of their assets including distribution channels, lower acquisition costs and strong branding
- So translating the High level process to something meaningful for the people doing the day job
- to translate the high level process into something meaningful for the people executing the day-to-day tasks – what changes are needed to the processes already in place? Do staff need incentives to ensure your new strategy becomes a reality?
Be sure to check out other tips from our speakers, as well as our future TableCrowd dinners.
