In this week’s Cover Story, BusinessWeek makes a strong case for the need to innovate during a recession. “Managing Through a Crisis” discusses many of the managerial challenges of getting through hard economic times. What’s interesting about the article is how looking at previous recessions shows that, for companies that can take advantage of lower prices and reduced competition, economic hard times can be great growth opportunities.


One key point that I took away from BusinessWeek’s podcast of the cover story was this idea of “dare to innovate.” Emily Thornton describes this idea as being different from the “big ideas” or new products that people traditionally associate with innovation. Instead, Emily says that daring to innovate in a recession should mean:

“You should be thinking of innovative ways to become more efficient, to improve your processes and think out of the box in those realms so that when the recession is over you are thinking out of the box and you’re prepared to innovate in other ways.”
We’ve been helping marketing and sales teams become more efficient for over a decade. CustomShow is the perfect example of the type of technological and process improvement that lets companies become more efficient and effective in their marketing and sales efforts. This helps both during hard times when money is scarce and head count is low, but it also lets companies develop effective workflows and processes that will allow them to be even more effective when the economy swings back up, as it inevitably will.