How does the Amazon innovation formula keep replicating?
Amazon is an astonishing company for a whole lot of reasons, but there is one that is not front and centre in most conversations I have seen and in which I have been involved. This is the means by which Amazon just keeps on innovating, genuine, disruptive innovations,...
8 clichés every entrepreneur should consider
Clichés become clichés because they make sense, and are widely used, so they pass into the language. Unfortunately, common usage often makes them appear flippant, a throw-away line that means nothing. That they take on that label does not make them any...
Your ‘enemy’ makes you stronger.
Strategy is as much about what you will not do as it is about what you will do, perhaps even more so, as it forces difficult choices. Equally, the old marketing buzz-word 'positioning' which was defined in my university days 45 years ago as 'how your...
9 reasons why SME’s should invest in a governing board
Very few of the small and medium sized businesses I interact with have a governing board of any real quality. Many have a 'board' required under the various regulatory regimes they must meet, but very few have a board that acts in the manner of a...
What governments can learn from small business.
Apart from the obvious, of doing sufficient due diligence on the important detail, such as knowing your nationality, there are many other lessons to be learnt. Amongst the key ones is the depth of consideration small business owners need to give to the...
Australia Day 2018
It is Australia day down under. A day we celebrate…… what? The landing at Sydney Cove of the first fleet of convicts and their equally corrupted gaolers?, The invasion that ended a way of life that had existed for how many thousands of years? The beginning...
Is Amazon Go the supermarket of the future?
Amazon has been experimenting since December 2016 with a concept store 'Amazon Go" in Seattle. It has been a 'Beta' store, open only to Amazon employees, as they set about solving the obvious wrinkles in an environment with no cashiers, and no self-serve cashier...
How do you measure the scalability of your business?
Almost every business I know seeks to grow, as there is a recognition that growth brings benefits beyond simply the size of revenues and profits. It brings credibility, attracts good employees, enables negotiation from a stronger position, and much more....
A brand is a red highlighter in your brain.
Brands have a number of useful commercial purposes. They can build margins, gain distribution, provide a base for expansion, and a whole lot more, but that is all from the perspective of the brand owner. From the opposite perspective, that of the customer,...
Your network is the second most valuable asset you have
Networking in this modern age has been digitised, so it is made easier, but is it more effective? Probably not, when most of the time the so called Networking' is little more than an opportunity for a sales pitch. Over my time, the most value that has...