Jul 14, 2011 | Innovation, Social Media, Strategy
The fun and games predicted are starting!
Facebook has added Skype to its services, in an expanding collaboration with Microsoft , and in response to the competitive threat of to Facebook by Google+ launched recently.
This collaboration will not make the integration and building of a commercially sustainable Skype by Microsoft easier, if anything it will add complication, because the fit between facebook and Skype seems so logical, and culturally much easier than the fit with Microsoft, and the twins may just turn on the parent, leaving Microsoft again out in the cold having funded the party.
Time will tell if there is any parallel between this set of deals and the humbling fiasco that was the recent divestment of Myspace by News Ltd, an instance where the cultures of an “old economy” business trying to transform itself and taking a bath in the process, although it seems pretty amazing to put Microsoft into the “old economy” bucket, but culturally, that is where it belongs.
Jul 10, 2011 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
I have praised the way Tesco has adapted to the emergence of smartphones as a marketing tool, particularly in the UK by combining Loyalty card use, Dunnhumby data mining and smartphones.
Sensibly Tesco are migrating this technology elsewhere in their growing global footprint, including Korea with the use of virtual supermarkets to add value to shoppers by easing their time burden.
Recently Tesco also bought US start-up specialist social marketing agency BzzAgent, highlighting their determination to push the boundaries of social media and technology turning the emerging technical capabilities into marketing tools.
Australian retailers are dragging their feet badly, but with all the ex Tesco management now in Coles, there will be movement on leveraging the data on store cards and into net shopping pretty soon. Others will follow as they get their acts together, so suppliers to retail need to get their heads around how these changes will impact them in an environment where the change over the last few years has been huge, and they lose control of their brands via the rapid market share increase of housebrands as they become the Sku of choice for retailers.
Jul 6, 2011 | Innovation, Strategy
When a product is at the point of being launched, or upgraded, the last minute improvement, cloaked as product optimisation, is often a stumbling block.
Two points about product optimisation:
- It is better to have a good product today, learning about the dynamics out in the marketplace, than the promise of a great product tomorrow.
- Once a product has been launched, the improvement process should never stop, just because it may be successful in the market, although the temptation is to move to the next challenge.
This seems to hold as true for a simple widget, as it does for complicated, technical products, and web based products.
Optimisation is a constant challenge for all products, but here are 10 rules from the Silicon Valley Product Group, a very successful VC outfit, that holds true for them, so should contribute to your thinking for your widget.
Jun 30, 2011 | Management, Strategy
Every strategy book and article I have ever read talks about “alignment” as the holy grail of effective strategy implementation, but rarely have I seen it articulated in simple terms that are easily communicated.
So here goes:
- Ensure there is an open, widely discussed, open to feedback process to articulate “where we are going”
- Ensure the individual performance evaluation process is linked to the “where are we going” question so that the individual, when answering the question “where am I going” sees his/her personal best interest is served by the organisation.
- Ensure there is some sort of recognition process in place, so that individuals outstanding performance in delivering towards the strategic priorities can be widely recognised. It is these stories that make up the fabric of the organisational culture.
- Ensure that continuous improvement is a natural part of everyone’s everyday activity.
- Ensure that leadership at every level is evident in the willingness to help others do better
- As above, except that every individual should be open to ways in which they can do better.
If all the above is happening, I’ll bet there is a great degree of alignment.
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 16, 2011 | Lean, Operations, Strategy
One of the reasons it is sometimes hard to keep a lean initiative alive, or indeed, get it past first base after the initial adrenalin has worn off is the manner in which the traditional accounting systems monitor performance. Often, accounting is the hardest function to win across, because their whole rationale is brought to account, if I may use such a bad pun.
Lets just consider a few of the more common things accounting does to (unintentionally) frustrate lean:
- Counts inventory as an asset, encouraging a build up of inventory, at best, not discouraging it
- Fails to monitor capacity, so simple improvements such as reducing downtime, reducing changeover time, speeding up throughput, do not get counted until a full bill of materials review is done, and often not then. Therefore, good work is not seen on the bottom line.
- Fails to monitor the performance, other than direct cost ,of individual steps in a value stream to understand the impact one may have on the whole value stream.
- Rarely is there a full value stream costing done, including sales and marketing costs, Accounting simply do not have the tools in their kitbags.
- Customer value is a foreign concept to accounting, “marketing takes care of that” (“by the way, what is it?”) making it easy to ignore anything outside the ledger
- Fails to understand that lean builds capacity, and the benefits start to flow only when the freed up capacity is utilised
- Fails to recognise that value streams are cross functional, and rarely fit comfortably into the common functional responsibilities and performance measures that are applied.
So, perhaps task No.1 in a Lean initiative is to get the “beenies” on board and thinking about how the impact of the initiative can be counted, made transparent, communicated, and improved upon.
