New verb. “To Netf..k”
The verb that describes the process of retailers ignoring the shift to digital: payment, e-shopping, mobile selection of destination, on-line reviews, and so on. The business model is rapidly evolving, whatever your current model may be, nothing is set in stone, or...
New age entrepreneurs
There are now so many one person businesses emerging, SME's that employ no-one on a full time basis, but call on contractors and specialists when necessary, that I think we need a new term: "Solepreneurs". They are often entrepreneurs, but not in the generally...
Facebook in Beta circa 1517
In these times of abundance of marketing "stuff", bloggs, video content, on line advice and templates, what we are missing is a deep intellectual understanding of the marketing process. The tools have changed, but at its core, human behavior has not. We are still...
Do unto others…..
The metaphor for business as war is widely used, and it does have considerable value when considering strategy, tactics, capability development and resource deployment. Marketing is a base component of this mix. It requires you to see the world, product offer,...
Old does not always mean outdated
Advertising gets a lot of bad press, TV, radio, magazines, the backbone of advertising all last century have been supplanted by various digital platforms that accepts and places advertising, supposedly direct to a highly targeted audience, when they are looking for...
Design thinking: wasted hype?
Perhaps unfortunately I was on the receiving end of a rant about design thinking last week. It was a passionate, articulate, and informed rant, but a rant nevertheless. There is no doubt in my mind that design thinking is a competitively crucial capability. In this...
Another slice off the cut FMCG loaf.
Years ago there was a line in the film "Breaker Morant" where the breaker, played by Bryan Brown said of a young ladies virtue "another slice off a cut loaf will not be missed" . I never forgot the line, and have used it often, usually to make the point that a...
Don’t be boring!!
So much of life is boring, the same, dull, unemotional, repetitive, unimaginative, and missable crap….please miss me!!. About the most boring, pointless and annoying "presentations" I have ever seen, are the safety announcements on planes before take-off....
Value transformation in agriculture
The agricultural supply chain that has dominated the way we get our food has evolved as a fragmented, opaque series of transactions that occur to fill the gap between the producer and the consumer. Many of these transactions add no value to the consumer, rather, they...
8 Sales prospect categories
Automation of the marketing and sales "funnel" has many productivity advantages, so long as the implementation of the software works, which is always harder than the smiling assurances of the automation salespeople would indicate. However, there is one benefit that is...