Humans are hardwired to view uncertainty as a risk. It’s called the fight-or-flight response, and it’s part of our genetic make-up. This survival mechanism is brought on by a combination of stress as a reaction to life-threatening situations. Over the course of humanity, we have evolved in a variety of ways, but the fight-or-flight response remains. It’s part of human existence. Our stress triggers have changed greatly, but to adapt to this response, we have also evolved to add a planning component to our lives.
From planning meals as hunters and gatherers to planning all aspects of our children’s lives, their education, we sacrifice while searching for ways to make sense of the changing world around us. But, there is no resisting the changing world. Our world is in constant motion, and if we want to survive, we have to adapt.
These adaptations take on new nuances in the business world, especially when talking about how customers are consuming and wanting to make purchases. In the era of The Experience Economy, the idea of ownership is no longer viable. We have entered a new era, that is depicted in a recent blog post, “The End of Ownership.” What thrives in this new era is the power of recurring relationships through subscription management.
When subscription management is brought up in a discussion, whether personal or business in nature, it always means a change in buying behavior. There is no one more interested in the impact buying in a business setting than the CFO.
As a CFO, much of your job revolves on planning and forecasting. As you know, when buying relationships shift to subscriptions, you can no longer simply look at what closed this month or this quarter. You have to shift your view to fully look at all avenues of the future. This impacts how you allocate and spend money as you better understand what’s to come in the future.
Below are three ways that subscription management impacts CFOs.
In these challenging times of uncertainty, customers are making decisions to reduce anxieties and investments that can be difficult to validate. This influences many to take a subscription-based service that will give them the flexibility to scale up or down with the evolving needs of their business. There is no resisting the constant motion of the changing world. Adaption by forecasting and planning is the only way to truly evolve alongside uncertainty.
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