What your business can learn from the Godfreys collapse

Another one bites the dust in a rough economic and retail environment, as Aussie mainstay vacuum cleaner retailer Godfreys succumbs sadly into the arms of administrators. Sure, times are indeed tough with consumer spending tightened amidst a cost of living crisis, but for Godfreys what this comes down to is a loss of relevance — driven by a lack of innovation. 

When you fail to stay close to what’s important to your key stakeholders, and instead focus on stubbornly maintaining the status quo for fear of change or the sunk costs fallacy, you lose touch. 

It’s helpful to consider the innovation S-Curve and how understanding where your business sits on it can help prepare you for each phase. It’s a graphical representation of the typical life cycle of a business, technology, or product that illustrates the journey of growth in four phases: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Starting with slow growth (introduction phase), it then accelerates (growth phase) as adoption becomes mainstream, before tapering off as growth slows (maturity phase), moving eventually into decline if the company fails to innovate before this.

So here’s how to make sure you retain your value proposition in the face of constant change.

Stay close to what’s happening in the market and beyond

No business is immune to external forces, and at this point in history, we are fortunate to have them in spades (think climate change, cybersecurity, biodiversity loss, rising inequality, supply chain disruptions and so on). While it’s easy to get overwhelmed and dismiss the relevance to our business, smart leaders will keep their ears and eyes open and connect the dots. We’re not operating in a vacuum after all (oops — no pun intended). When you see the flood waters coming your way, so to speak, it’s already too late.

With a curious mindset, keeping an eye on external forces close to and outside your industry bubble can help you identify threats and opportunities early on. Armed with knowledge and a culture of innovation (an openness to adapt), the impetus to strategically act feels like less of a barrier and more of a natural progression. 

Look for early signs of a shift on the S Curve

Understanding the S-curve is crucial for small businesses as it emphasises the need for continuous innovation to maintain growth and navigate inflection points. Companies must identify these inflection points and develop strategies to transition onto a new S-curve to sustain momentum and avoid decline. Keeping an eye on those external forces is one way to watch for signs of shifting, but so is listening to key stakeholders. 

Customers, employees, franchisees, suppliers and even competitors are the richest sources of insights. You just have to know the right questions to ask and bravely keep asking them to uncover hidden truths that might present your next opportunity. 

Don’t be afraid to validate new value propositions before scaling them

Change is challenging, especially when talking about future-proofing your business through innovation. So finding a rock-solid value proposition should not only consider what will create value for your stakeholders but also what will create value for the world more broadly. Especially now, it’s the businesses that have a keen sense of what will be valuable and sustainable in the next 5-10 years that will create future fitness. 

Having a longer-term horizon is therefore crucial and demonstrates the need to identify potential future sources of value early and overcome risk by validating them at a smaller scale. Consider the role that minimum viable products, pop-up physical locations, digital marketing and collaborations can play in helping you unlock and test future value propositions.

Godfreys stopped owning a position in the minds of consumers because they lost a genuine reason for being. Their example shows small businesses that remembering what business you are actually in (not simply what product, service or delivery method you have created economies in) is essential. Agility and a broader world view is going to be critical in the coming years for businesses of all sizes. Small businesses are at an advantage over larger competitors as they’re more able to remain nimble and alert to changing dynamics.

Melissa Packham is a brand and marketing strategist at Brand Led Business.