Independence and interdependence
Interdependence drives successful collaboration, and collaborative arrangements never survive without clear areas of interdependence. When individual collaborators judge their actions in the context of the best outcome for the group, rather than their own short...
Value add at half the price, the end of a market?
Yesterday I got a telemarketing offer for a half price newspapers subscription, delivered to my door from one of the major dailies. Of course I signed up, beats walking to the newsagent and paying double! The other major daily in Sydney is giving away free copies of...
Share of wallet.
SOW is a simple but powerful concept for both consumer and B2B markets. How much of a customers spending on products you could supply, actually comes your way, Vs going to a competitor? how much of their "wallet" to you get? It is a great measure of the relative value...
This one or that.
Success always means making choices… which customer, which market, which price point, which channel, and so on. The key is to actually make the choice after the appropriate analysis, and commit to it, whilst remaining sufficiently alert and agile to recognise early...
Information itself is no longer power.
In the past, those who held the information held the power, no longer is it so clear cut. Now, we have so many options opened up to us that the sharing of information is the new power, as information attracts activity, as light attracts a moth. This is a huge change...
Them or us?
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...
5 steps to improving performance.
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...
what is a demand chain
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...
berry jam and the long tail
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...
Silver lining
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...