Insight

As Northern Virginia area business owners and community leaders, it’s difficult to find and use third-party data that matters, from private or public sources, in growth and marketing planning. We’ll provide non-advisory opinions on data of interest here at WestXDC insights, to get the collective conversation going on combating economic uncertainty, inflation-driven impact, and real business opportunities – let us know other sources of interest.

The data 

This is a sample report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) – essentially news we know already (i.e. general growth or stagnation of consumer spending, for example), but perhaps helpful in strategic planning this next year. The summary POV (point of view) is, while most other areas of consumer spending have been, and continue to be very flat – the “digital economy” (spending in IT and communications-related goods and services) continues to be healthy with slow growth, as well as healthcare. Spending in financial/insurance-related services is ticking down, while food services/accommodations have generally recovered.

What does this mean to you? 

In planning for business investment, growth and marketing, it seems reasonable to interpret this data as macro-signals – some slightly more urgent than others. For your financial/insurance services business – it’s a call to arms, to be aggressive in protecting and growing your market share in serious headwinds. For all businesses, including digital – focus and capture consumer and business interest in IT services – wherever it appears – into very responsive lead conversion. Food services/accommodation businesses – it’s a new year, consumers are back but cautious, so work on retention, reviews and new products to differentiate. 

Thoughts or discussion (LinkedIn or Facebook).