Jun 26, 2011 | Branding, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Sales, Social Media, Strategy
The future of produce marketing in Australia is fraught with difficulties that many who just buy their produce in the supermarket will never think about.
The dominance of the chain supermarkets, lack of innovation, fragile investment outlook, environmental concerns, regulatory inconsistency and political blather in place of certainty coming from any philosophic foundation, an ageing workforce, trade barriers, the list goes on.
The report below was commissioned in an effort to put some framework around the marketing of produce in Australia, and to take lessons from what was happening elsewhere, and whilst it is a relative scratch at the surface, it highlights the challenges. Download it, and let me know what you think, what have I missed, where it could be improved. Its free to download, but I would appreciate you letting me know by commenting.
Embracing Innovative Marketing & Promotional Methods
Jun 21, 2011 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Communication, Customers, Personal Rant
Negotiation is a process of finding a solution to a question that is acceptable to all parties. It should go without saying that the first step is to actually communicate, setting out to find areas of compromise, and places of potential value not immediately obvious that occur in many disputes.
The alternative is standing back and throwing rocks, which can only be a winning strategy when you hold all the cards, but then it is not a negotiation, but a statement. However, when the power in a dispute is spread around, declining a seat at the table almost inevitably means you end up on the menu.
The unilateral banning of the live cattle trade to Indonesia was such a rock throwing exercise. Thank heavens the dills in Canberra appear to have woken up in time, and are at least communicating with stakeholders, hopefully with the intention of finding a solution, rather than just doing a post cock-up arse cover.
Jun 1, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
Considering in a recent workshop the parameters of service innovation being delivered by the enterprise concerned, we boiled down the variables to just two.
- What is it that the customers is trying to achieve that using our product will deliver better than any alternative?
- How easy (or hard) is it to do business with us, and how can we improve the experience?
It really seems too simple, but sometimes the simple delivers the best outcome, complicating it just gets in the way of clear thought.
When we answered these two simple questions, the follow up activities were obvious, as were the costs, necessary changes, and implementation timetables.
May 25, 2011 | Change, Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Retailers have spent 50 years offering a wide range of options to scratch any shopping itch. They have trained consumers to expect, indeed demand, a wide range, but given their walls are not elastic, is it any wonder that that when the elastic walls of the e-tailer comes along, we do what they have trained us to do, check out all the options and buy the one that best meets our needs.
Another perspective is that retailers to date have had all the power, what got stocked had a chance of sale, so retailers charged suppliers to have their product on shelf, and charged more for the best sales positions, in effect mixing the picking of winners with extraction of cash from suppliers. Now, suppliers have another option, one where the usurious practices of bricks and mortar retailers is mitigated, and a product has the opportunity for sale on its merits, not just on the pocket size of the supplier.
Is it any wonder the shift to net shopping is gaining momentum, the retailers have only themselves to blame that they did not see the shift happening, or just wished it would go away, and failed to use their capital and position to carve out a position for themselves.
May 19, 2011 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
It will be worth watching the way Microsoft goes about leveraging their $8.5 Billion (should have paid Aussie dollars?) purchase of Skype, there will be a swarm of lessons to be learnt:
- Integration of a “free” service into a product/profit business model. This challenge will create sufficient tensions and cultural speed bumps to keep the academics busy for a long time. History is against Microsoft, most purchases like this that seek to integrate differing cultures fail to add value in the long term.
- Skype has a huge customer base, but is only marginally profitable, turning that around without risking the loss of the existing customer base who want a free service will be problematical
- To what extent is this the foundation of a marketing effort by Microsoft to protect their hugely profitable Office franchise from cloud based competitors like Google Docs, and how will this all pan out?
- Will the existing Skype customers continue to support the service now it is part of the “evil empire”
- How will Apple and Google react, both appeared to have been beaten in an auction for Skype. They both have communication products that compete with Skype, but few users.
- Can Microsoft assemble the capabilities to build new, risky, communication products that undergo a process of continuous improvement in the market with the input from users.
As a user of Skype’s free service, I am not sure how I would react to being charged, probably just “suck it up” but the commercial opportunities for conferencing calls using video must be immense, and the free service is a great entry point with a huge existing user base. Hopefully Microsoft sees it that way
May 10, 2011 | Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Pretty big aspiration, to outcompete the two businesses that have consistently demonstrated the power of innovation as the core competitive tool over the past 10 years, and have reaped the rewards by creating and redefining markets and then taking all the gravy. The story of Skype since the company was initially bought by Ebay is enlightening, and shows how it has been done.
Ben Horowitz, a tech entrepreneur and angel investor got into the act by being part of a consortium that bought Skype for just over 2 Billion $18 months ago. They withstood full frontal assaults from both Google and Apple, who both have a habit of winning, and have just announced the on-sale of Skype to Microsoft for 8.5 Billion. Reasonable return.
In Bens blog entry, where he announces the sale, and articulates the short history that netted$ 6.5 billion in the time it takes my local council to consider an application to build a fence, the key to this stunning outcome is in the first sentence in the second last paragraph, where Ben referrs to the quality of the people, and the network effect of existing Skype users as being the key to the success.
The power of an idea whose time has come, coupled with the best of the collaborative and networking tools of the net 2.0, and great customer service.
