Aug 18, 2011 | Marketing, Strategy
A common question every business asks itself regularly, and one with no answer without a detailed understanding of context.
Imagine you are in 1990, and someone asked you “how much would you pay for an internet search?” The only logical response is “a what?”
1990, there was no internet as we now know it, and little capacity to search the documents that were on the few networked computers of the time.
Fast forward to 2000, the same question would have brought an answer that gave the search value, as the net was around, but not everyone had access, or the know-how to search it effectively with the relatvively modest search engines of the time, so the quick assembly of the wide range of information that the few could gather had great value.
Fast forward again to 2010. Same question, different answer again, as almost everyone had the access and knowledge to do a comprehensive search, so the value is diminished because it is no longer a way of differentiating, delivering something unique.
This ebb and flow of value is common in almost any context you choose to examine, but we forget so easily that value is a relative term.
Aug 15, 2011 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Marketing
An ongoing frustration of innovation projects is the apparently always moving goalposts. How often have you heard “wish marketing would make up their minds what they want”
This desire to have the end point articulated at the commencement is natural, it enables good milestone and resource management, feedback and accountability systems, all beloved of the bean counters. However, if the requirements of a marketplace are evolving quicker than the projects can be brought to the market, leaving the goalposts untouched is the same as ensuring you bring a redundant project to completion, not much value there.
The challenge is to know if marketing is just a bunch of seat shiners who cannot make up their minds, or a group so intimately connected to the market that they see the evolution as it happens. Sometimes it is pretty hard to tell the difference. Therefore, the only way to ensure the development groups are connected to the market, via marketing or otherwise, is to and hold them to a level of personal and development group responsibility for the outcomes.
Aug 12, 2011 | Communication, Social Media
Yesterday I was surprised when I posted the entry having a shot at the crap service Optus offers customers with a problem of their making, and a screen came up telling me it was my 600th post.
Amazing to me, what started as a creative outlet, a way of expressing my views, and perhaps connecting with a few who shared those, and could contribute to their evolution, would extend to 600 posts.
Often I am asked “where they come from” , and I honestly do not know, experience, what I see around me, other posts and articles I see that trigger a train of thought, all over the place.
So, thanks to all those who have contributed, hopefully I have contributed something back to you, and we are both better off as a result.
Regards
Allen Roberts.
Aug 9, 2011 | Collaboration, Communication, Management
Negotiation is usually difficult, that is the nature of things when two parties are setting out to maximise their outcome. Whilst it may not be a win/lose situation, where the parties set out to make the pie bigger, or different before cutting it up, it nevertheless is a confronting process for most.
Considering the negotiation therefore as just another difficult conversation has great merit. Do the background work, see it from the other parties perspective, and be prepared to work through the negotiation toolbox, but do not lose sight of the personal dynamics of a difficult conversation, and set out to manage them as a part of the process.
The nine mistakes articulated in the link above can form a framework for planning a difficult conversation, forewarned is forearmed.
Aug 8, 2011 | Customers, Demand chains, Marketing, Small business
On Friday I made a very modest contribution to the proceedings of the Organic and Green trade show in Sydney. A bunch of committed, passionate people, working their collective butts off to build businesses that deliver on the organic promise to consumers.
The numbers however are daunting.
The Australian grocery trade is north of $106 Billion, the organic market, counting everything, (perhaps twice) with the most optimistic assumptions is $500 mill, including all the cosmetics, soaps, candles, recyclable bags, et al, many not included in the grocery figures, and probably constitutes 50% of the total. In other words, perhaps 1 in every 5,000 dollars spent in Australia on food is spent on organic food. How do you win in that arena?
Answer, one person at a time building a tribe, connecting them, giving them a reason to connect with others, supporting the ways they can connect, and working 20 years to be an overnight success.
Organic products are at what I believe to be a unique point in time, the confluence of two great social impacts.
The first is the tools to connect being given to us by the web 2.0.
The second is the sudden realisation that food matters more than as just fuel, that there is a powerful social and familial force present when you prepare and share good food, on top of the obvious benefits of the impact of healthy food on the individuals health.
Had you told me 3 years ago that a TV reality show would contribute to a major change in behavior, I would have told you to stop smoking illegal stuff, but perhaps the change was lurking, and Masterchef just provided the catalyst.
Aug 5, 2011 | Branding, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Tesco is the leader in the field of retail social media marketing, as noted in the past, but have really outdone themselves with this experiment with a virtual store in railway stations in South Korea.
The speed at which innovations are being tested, and if implemented is increasing, but usually we would expect a smaller business to be sufficiently agile to try some of this stuff, but Tesco is building a really impressive track record.
Australian supermarket retailers are in the dark ages by comparison, although some of the smaller food service retailers are starting to move with location and coupon promotions, but I would expect Coles particularly, now managed by a veritable cricket team of ex-Tesco Poms to make the running amongst the big boys.
