January 26, 2017, and is all well?
It is Australia day today, and it has become my tradition to make some comment on the community in which we live, rather than addressing an issue of commercial sustainability, the main meal for the other 200 odd days on which I post. What a welcome change, if somewhat...
The greatest self-delusion of marketers.
We marketers are great at deluding ourselves, we do it about all sorts of things, often to justify the resources we are consuming in the absence of hard numbers. It is one thing to 'get away' with convincing the corner office that the number of 'Likes' on Facebook is...
What return should I expect?
This is a common question I get from the owners of businesses with whom I interact. There is no right answer, but when you consider that putting your money in a bank term deposit at no risk will currently generate you about 3%, and a diversified share portfolio held...
Will this change finally compel you to build your own digital assets?
Back in June 2016 when Microsoft paid $US26 Billion for LinkedIn, we all expected there to be changes. You do not spend that sort of dosh, even when it is just change as it is for Microsoft, without a plan. The advice from many, including myself was that it had just...
When the cheapest quote is not the best price.
A quote carries the implication of a low price, only price, little room for the value that may be delivered, and that your 'nose' is only just out of the water. What would happen if you called it an offer for service? Perhaps it is just a semantic difference, but it...
How do you set your prices
Most times people set prices as a function of three things: What their costs are, What margin the budget demands, What the competition is charging. All are the wrong way to go about it. Prices should be absolutely dependent on what customers are willing to pay. This...
The differences between Takt and cycle time, and why they are important.
'Job shops' have particular challenges in production planning and capacity utilisation. No two jobs are exactly the same, so the sequencing of jobs to optimise factory utilisation takes on even more importance. In the middle of an operational improvement...
What do employees really want?
If I asked that question of 50 randomly selected medium sized business owners, the first answer would be something like 'More pay'. That would be the wrong answer. 'More pay' is the default when other things more important to them are missing, and there is no...
How did I do in 2016?
Following is a re-run of the post from January 2016 when I again rubbed my crystal balls and made some predictions for the year. Let me know if you think the scores I gave myself are reasonable. 7 trends driving business in 2016. Like everyone...
Are we coming to the end of the great Australian FMCG Duopoly?
Supermarkets in Australia have had it good for some years, having the protection of a duopoly, which is almost a licence to print money in most circumstances. Woolworths certainly did for quite a while, and the fact that Coles did not is a reflection of poor...