John Hoffecker recalls the days when taking the pulse of the
market was easy. You could simply listen to the word on the street
or read the local newspaper.
Hoffecker says those days are long gone.
The managing director of AlixPartners LLC’s office in Southfield,
Mich., the U.S. headquarters for the global restructuring, consulting and financial advisory firm, says there is only one constant in
business: The bar for what is expected of your business keeps rising.
Every year, your business is expected to provide more solutions
for a customer base that is likely expanding around the world,
requiring you to expand the presence of your business further than
you probably ever could have imagined even 10 or 20 years ago.
Hoffecker says it’s a trend that is only going to gain more steam
in the near future.
“I’ve been in business for 30 years now, and the one thing that’s a
constant is that the bar keeps rising,” he says. “What we did five
years ago to help a company perform successfully, it’s gone
beyond that. That means you always need to be looking at new
things that are different than what you did two, three, five years
ago. You need to be constantly in touch with what they’re doing in
other industries that could be applied to your own industry.
“If you’re in aerospace, you have to see what automotive companies are doing in terms of production methods that could take
your company up a bar. You have to know what some of the leading companies are doing out there that could be applied to a different situation. That takes staying close to your clients, understanding how their environment is changing and how their industry is globalizing.”
Keeping your company one step ahead of the needs of the markets
you serve takes vigilant monitoring of trends and a large helping of
outside-the-box thinking — not just from you but from everyone in
your company.
This is how Hoffecker keeps his wing of AlixPartners — which
had approximately $375 million in 2006 revenue — ready to meet
change head-on.