Rocking horse syndrome
I observe lots of activity in all sorts of enterprises, public and private, see KPI's set and met, initiatives announced with fanfare (and in the case of the NSW Government re-announced)but little of any value seems to be happening. Familiar? Enter the Rocking Horse...
Innovation, Hypocrisy and Money.
Apple has beaten Samsung in the US court, protecting a raft of patents that apply to mobile devices, acquiring a pile of cash, and the probable withdrawal of a number of Samsung products from the market. Competitive nirvana. Whilst it is understandable that Apple...
4 sources of innovation
Innovation is not a marketing term, it is much wider than that, it is a mind-set. It remains however, an eternal question, often used to open another boring workshop, "What is innovation?" Usually those who ponder this question are the marketing bods, and the very...
Net promoter score interpreted.
Most of the best ideas are simple, as is the Net promoter Score (NPS) the brainchild of Bain & Co executive Fred Reichheld. As it gained currency, its simplicity became blurred by unnecessarily imposed complexity, often added it seems, just to make a consulting...
Your customers are in the jungle
Social media is a jungle, full of vegetation that limits the view, poisionous flowers that look beautiful at first glance, small areas of bright sunlight that somehow finds its way through the foliage, nasty surprises of many types, and gems that can change your life....
Selling is a conversation
I wandered into a car dealer a while ago, largely killing some time, but I do need a new car, sometime soon, so I was tyre kicking with a rough agenda. One of the salesmen saw me get out of my old Pajero, and instead of sliding up with the typical opener, "got a few...
The “semantics” of marketing
People are always looking for answers in their lives, whilst mostly not being in a position to frame the question sufficiently to enable a search as specific as one on Google. It is a factor in our lives that contributes to the context in which we live where we go,...
Sales is the core function
Without sales, all the rest of the stuff that goes on in an enterprise is irrelevant. All the lofty strategies, policies, and well intentioned platitudes are dependent on the delivery of sales for their oxygen. As a senior manager in a large enterprise, I used to...
Australian Collaborative Gold
Management lessons abound in the great win by Australia's K4 crew in London. Co-ordination maximises the effect of input. For 1000 meters, the crew was absolutely co-ordinated, any minor deviation by any individual would have had a profound impact on the performance...
3 fixes for Marketing overhead dead-weight
The decades of growth up till a couple of years ago, and the recognition of the key nature of a robust marketing input to corporate success has left many organisations, particularly brand heavy consumer organisations with a marketing overhead problem as times change....