“Think outside the box” is a phrase thrown about somewhere in professional conversations and also in competitions and contests. It’s nothing but trying to come up with a creative solution, that no one else had thought about till date. Being generic or basic isn’t always good, as many businesses/people fall into the rut of being generic/basic at one point and fizzle out by losing out to their creative counterparts. Thinking out of the box, be it for an individual or a business, will certainly create a niche and make you stand out from the crowd no matter what the circumstances are. Corporate Gifting is no exception.
The same boring and basic gifts each year to your employees and clients, is going to make them raise the question of whether the gift giving is whole-hearted or just for namesake on your end. Imagine a person so thrilled to open the gift box, just to find some basic gifts like a chocolate bar, card and some stickers and being dejected by it. That spoils the main purpose of corporate gift-giving, which is to motivate the receiver and make them feel appreciated.
#How can ‘Thinking Out of the Box’ help your business:
Building your business’s USP: Businesses are dime a dozen. But there need not be just one clear winner amongst them, each one can be a winner on its own, by creating a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) which is different from other similar businesses. For e.g.: A mobile manufacturer may concentrate on making their mobile devices with the toughest glass and their USP would be ‘Unbreakable devices’. And another manufacturer may make the ones with the best and latest camera technology and so on. So, thinking out of the box would be to come up with a USP that is essential for your business, yet which sets you apart from your fellow competitors.
Gaining a new perspective: Traditional business models may have worked in the past, but will not work when there have been many changes in the market. Being stubborn about the old ways will not be helpful for your business, as your competitors will be ahead of you by following more updated strategies. Customers would not appreciate outdated products and services, and thus they may move onto your more up-to-date businesses. What helps in such a scenario is gathering a fresh new perspective and adapting yourself with that perspective, to cater to the customers according to their evolved taste. So, being creative in your business strategy and adapting to the latest methodologies makes a whole difference.
Problem Solving: ‘Modern Problems require Modern Solution’: this is a meme that has been going around in the past few years. Even though it is meme, it has a grain of truth in it. When businesses are present with various problems, the old tried and tested methods may work sometimes. But thinking out of the box and coming up with a modern and new solution would be a better way to tackle the upcoming problems that pop up for your business. And by finding new solutions, you are basically creating a cache of solutions ready-at-hand to use in the near future as well.
Breaking out of a rut: Stuck in a rut? Have a brainstorming session and come up with creative ideas to break out of it. Staying put in the same mindset and routine can hinder your growth. Open up to new ideas and a new routine. Feel yourself breaking out of the mundane route and blossoming.
#Our Independent Study on ‘Basic’ gifting:
At Rad, we were curious as to what effect the ‘mundane’ gifts in the market have on the receiver and took a quick survey. Here are the takeaway points from our survey:
When asked about the latest hamper from their employer, the response came as a mixed bag. While just a little less than 50% said that they were super excited about their latest hamper, the remaining 55.81% did not have a very positive response to theirs – ranging from just ‘somewhat excited’ to ‘it was a boring hamper’. Which means that almost all of them have expected a better hamper and not just a generic one. It’s high time that businesses take this into account and put in the right effort into their corporate gifting strategy.
The more direct question: “The On-boarding hamper these days have become so generic”, Do you feel it’s true? - had a whopping 98% respondents agreeing on the affirmative, while only a meagre 2% replied on the negative.
When asked about what they feel should be inside the hamper, our respondents answered as per the following:
And out of the respondents, 60% of whom had their latest hamper as their onboarding kit thought that their hamper was either boring or just fine. So, the best practice for companies would be to take feedback from their new employees in the recent times, and change the onboarding kit according to what the majority of them feel would make an interesting gift to welcome the new personnel into your corporate world.
#How we apply ‘thinking outside the box’ to our corporate gift boxes:
One size fits all concept would not work, when it comes to corporate gifting. We would need to understand that each person’s likes and tastes differs. Thus, this forms the major challenge as we would need to satisfy everyone nonetheless.
At Rad, we offer you solution for this by offering you a wide range of hampers. You can choose Hand-crafted hampers, Eco (green) hampers, Festive hampers and even customize the hamper according to each of the hamper receiver.
A KPMG REPORT HAS REPORTED THAT ABOUT 8 OUT OF 10 RESPONDENTS WANT TO BUY PRODUCTS FROM BRANDS THAT GIVE BACK TO SOCIETY, 90% OF THE RESPONDENTS ARE EVEN WILLING TO PAY A PREMIUM FOR IT.
While you choose the corporate gifts for your employee or a client or a stakeholder, it is best to know their personality, likes and hobbies. Each person’s preferences may be unique and it is best practice to gift them something that they will like and use, instead of giving them some generic or mundane gift, which will just likely be collecting dust somewhere in their house.