How do you foster ‘Radical Adaptability’?
The old way of thinking and working in silos, based on organisation charts, is gone. The key commercial question now is how to develop and commercialise innovative solutions to problems faced by individuals, and the wider community, faster and more efficiently than...
Best answer to the dumbest interview question ever.
How often have you heard the question 'tell me about your weaknesses' in an interview of some sort? As a corporate bloke climbing the greasy pole I heard it a lot, and it has popped up from time to time in the last 25 years I have been consulting. It always...
How supermarkets have destroyed brands by promotional pricing.
Promotional pricing is often the only tool used to generate volume. Ask any salesperson 'Why' and they will say 'because it works'. Go next door and ask a marketer, and their response is more likely to be something like: ‘to encourage non-users to try the...
The day we went broke being successful.
On Friday last week, I had to go into the city. About 10.00am I turned up at Town hall station, and the shopping precinct around it was crowded, people lining up to get into shops that a few days previously were deserted. It took me a while to realise that it...
Five questions to build a ‘Cascadable’ performance dashboard
Communication of outcomes, from the strategic drivers of your business to what was produced in the last 5 minutes at a station on the factory floor, is increasingly recognised as the key to performance improvement. Communicating the right things, to the right...
Is price the driver or outcome of where you choose to play?
Customers read much into the price you choose to charge, the architecture of your price list, and willingness to deploy price tactically. Price can also override all your other marketing activity, as it is the quantitative reflection of what you think your customers...
Do you tell employees when you decide to sell?
When the owner of a medium sized business is thinking of selling, the road in front to complete a transaction is a rocky one. On top of the pressure and tension of financial and strategic due diligence, there are always questions about employee reaction. Will...
Train hard to improve sales and cash
Cash is the final arbiter of commercial success. You cannot live without it, too much of it and you get lazy, too little and you are wheezing, struggling to breathe, living moment to moment. There is a lot of advice around about how to manage your cash,...
The problem with strategy
Strategy is an essential ingredient for success. Without a clear, unambiguous, and well communicated strategy, there will be wasted effort, sub-optimal decision making, lack of alignment between functional responsibilities, and any number of other...
How do you overcome manufacturing’s WMB syndrome?
The term 'Washing Machine Brain' was used recently by a client as we sorted through all the competing tasks and priorities of his role running a small, rapidly expanding business. Everything was mixed up, tangled, swirling at a rate he found difficult to...