Buy low, sell high. Good rules to live by for the investment-savvy person. (I, being oh-so-not investment-savvy, usually do the opposite.) The phrase could be applied, slightly altered, to a business strategy: Invest during slow times so you can sell when times are good.
That sounds like a smart, level-headed business rule, and some of the largest companies follow it. Today The Wall Street Journal reported on a study showing that companies that had steady or increased R&D spending during a downturn found big success once the economy kicked back into gear. Apple"s iPod is a shining example. R&D for the device that helped propel Apple"s growth during the last decade started in 1999, and it was released during troubled economic times--in 2001, just one month after Sept. 11.
But Bruce Hamilton, president of Boston-based lean consultancy GBMP, takes this concept another step. He suggested that companies don"t just hang in there and wait for the upturn. Now, he said, is the time for the best companies to get aggressive, ramp up advertising and marketing efforts, and gain market share.
