At the end of the year, it seems sensible to have a look at the posts that generated the most traffic. Surprisingly, none are posts that have gone up in this most challenging year, not an outcome I anticipated. This demonstrates the long-term value of a blog of this nature. Collecting and curating ideas and perspectives over a long period becomes an investment, certainly for me as the writer, and hopefully for those who choose to follow, or just dip in from time to time.
In order, from the most viewed, the 10 were:
5 key factors to consider when planning your budgeting process. January 2020.
This post was the first of 2020, and did generate some traction early on. However, in the early parts of 2021, when suddenly businesses had to rethink their budgeting processes in the face of Covid it took off. It will no doubt kick along again in the early part of 2022, which is unlikely to be much more predictable than the year just finishing.
3 essential pieces of the supermarket business model. November 2014.
First published way back in 2014, this post has been number one or two in the most read posts every year since. Clearly the elements of the supermarket business model retain an abiding interest. Retail is also the core of my corporate experience, now 25 years behind me. Many of the illustrative stories in these pages come from that time, as the lessons are timeless. The tools have changed, the behavioural foundations remain very consistent. Even amongst the massive switch to online retailing in the past year, the foundations of retailing have remained consistent. The pace has increased geometrically, and the logistics are new, but the basic requirement for success, to add value to the consumer, remains exactly as it was.
The 4 dimensions of project planning. August 2017.
Every business is a mass of individual and group projects of various types and importance. This post offers a framework to consider when going about the planning processes. Planning is another form of predicting the future, and as we know, that is not a reliable process. However, planning ensures you are better prepared than just relying on being reactive as circumstances change. As Eisenhower noted just before the Normandy landings in 1944 ‘In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable’
The 5 strategic dimensions of price. October 2018.
To my mind, this is one of the more important posts I have written amongst the 2100 over 13 years. How to set and maintain optimum price is a challenging, even confronting task, too often not given the strategic importance it deserves. After all, every added dollar of revenue you can extract from the marketplace falls straight to the bottom line, and it is the one driver of profitability over which management has absolute control. It is one of a number of posts around price that are in the archives.
A marketer’s explanation of Net Present Value. February 2018
Net Present Value, or NPV, is an accounting term thrown around with gay abandon by accountants, assuming everyone understands what it means. Over the years, very few marketers I have known had a clear understanding of NPV. Hopefully, this post helped some in those conversations with their accounting peers, trying to get their own back for all the jargon marketers habitually use, by using a bit of their own.
A private note to the chairman. April 2013
This one was a surprise. It is an old post from 2013 that paraphrases a conversation I had with the chairman of an organisation on whose board I sat at the time. We had failed to agree for some time over a series of questions that could be characterised as the priority list against which the board should have been making resource allocation decisions for management to execute. At the time I was pretty fired up, and subsequently resigned the role. On rereading the post, I would not resile from any of the items listed, and would offer the same advice were I to be in a similar situation again.
How to wield Occam’s Razor to build robust strategy. June 2016.
Occam’s Razor seems to have become a bit fashionable recently which is perhaps why this post got a guernsey in the top ten, after languishing with the ‘also-rans’ for 5 years. The advice however is sound, seeking the simplest possible explanation that fits all the facts, no matter how unexpected it may be. In a complex and volatile world, simplicity is one the hardest things to achieve.
Classic Marketing Strategy: Before and After. September 2016.
The title says it all. Marketing is about delivering a value proposition to those who may engage and make a purchase. Showing how the outcome of the purchase delivers a positive outcome has always been, and will always be a powerful way to communicate. I used myself as the example, having just had a couple of ‘headshots’ to replace the one I had been using, which was ‘homemade’. It might be time for an update, although the years and inactivity of Covid have not done me any favours.
Problem solving continuum. June 2010.
This post was a very early one, proposing the idea that every problem sits somewhere on a continuum that describes the way in which management goes about finding and executing a solution. At one end workarounds are common, to the other end where difficult problems are subjected to continuous improvement processes. There is much more that could be said, and a number of subsequent posts addressed some of these items, but given the interest, this idea will receive greater consideration in 2022.
The 7 mental models for Successful marketing. June 2017.
This 10th inclusion reflects on a very personal experience that highlighted to me the simple fact that while the tools of marketing have changed radically over the last decade, the foundations have not changed at all. It is one of the longer posts in the archives, running to almost 3,000 words, and includes an audio version delivered at a small business seminar tagged on the end.
To those who have followed, commented, or just ‘dipped in’ occasionally, I extend my thanks, and hope that you continue to draw some value from my musings.
Have a great 2022, it can only be better than 2021.
