Apr 16, 2009 | Marketing
Many people who run businesses obsess about the competition to the extent that it impacts on their own strategic development. They watch what competitiors do, aggressively match them, and set out to beat them at their own game.
Often the better answer is to be different to them, be so different that there is a yawning chasm for at least a small group of customers, such that they would not leave you for them, and you attract that same type of customer currently with “them”
Competition is not all about them, it is also about us.
Apr 14, 2009 | Operations
As a boy my dad used to say “everybody makes mistakes, only a fool makes the same one twice”
There are now many learned tomes written and sold that offer similar advice, boiled down, “learn from your mistakes”. You do not need a book, it is 5 easy steps:
- Gather all relevant information
- Form a hypothesis
- Test the hypothesis against performance expectations based on steps 1 & 2.
- Understand where and why the actual performance in the test differs from those expected
- Back to step one, and repeat.
If you are a scientist, you will probably call it the “scientific method” if you are a reader of continuous improvement articles you will call it a “PDCA” cycle, if you come from the military, you probably know it as an “AAR”.
Seems to me, they are all synonyms for common sense.
Apr 14, 2009 | Demand chains
Most are familiar with the notion of supply chains, and describe them as assembling product, of some type, and moving it through a series of points where it often receives further investment in packaging and processing, to a customer of consumer.
Similarly, the concept of value chains is familiar, the emphasis being on the addition of the perceived value (usually again, packaging and the changing of the product form) at each point in the chain.
The notion of a demand chain changes the perspective of the chain 180 degrees, and seeks to define the whole chain in the terms of the end user, and what adds value to them. If some activity, or investment in the product does not add value to the end consumer of the product, why do it?
Most businesses, particularly in the agricultural sector where the food industry has its roots, produce stuff, and do it as well as they can, then look for someone to buy it, often an intermediary of some sort. This process repeats itself at each point in the chain.
How much better to start with the consumer, define their needs, and translate them back through the chain, with each point focussing on the end consumer as the reason to do, or not do, something. Voila, a demand chain!
Apr 13, 2009 | Marketing
The explosion of media options in the last 5-10 years is giving small businesses options they did not have in the age of mass media, mass marketing.
The recession will drive a continuing growth in alternative media at the expense of the traditional media, the growth is inexorable.
Small businesses now have the opportunity to connect with their markets in ways impossible a few years ago, meeting specific very narrow markets that may be geographically spread. Access to the “Long tail” of marketing, is creating markets that did not exist 10 years ago.
Small businesses with a “narrow but deep” market potential are no longer restricted by geography. Look at what my friend Jonathan Hatcher and his wife Alyssa are doing with their fantastic berry jam products grown and made on their farm in he NSW southern highlands. Their products have great appeal to the small , widely dispersed group of people who value the emotion that goes into each jar of jam.
Apr 9, 2009 | Marketing
In a downturn, the volume of low priced stuff increases, & as consumers reward themselves, some stuff a the “top end” also does well.
Beware if you are in the middle, and not the lowest cost producer, both your volumes will suffer, and margins will be squeezed as you try to compete.
Beware if you think you can move to the “top end” without a strong and unique value proposition that is compelling in the market.
However, if you have the strong value prop, even in the downturn, you should do well in many product categories.
There is always a silver lining if you look hard enough for it.
