The current parlous state of the Australian food industry.
We all need to eat, but we seem to take for granted the access to processed and fresh food and groceries. To consider the 'food industry' as one entity ignores the entirely different strategic drivers of the three main components: Raw material production or...
Are we blinded by fear of the past?
Every individual and group on the planet has in their heads a set of parameters built by the personal experiences they have had, and those that are passed on by the parents, grandparents, all antecedents, and their social circles. The formulation of strategy...
Same challenge, two strategically opposite responses.
Woolworths last week announced they would close 250 of their current 300 in store butcher shops. Clearly, centralisation and opacity of the supply chain that serves customers via Woolworths is geared to the lowest common denominator, price. At the other end of...
How to piss away billions: Be a ‘hacker’ and ignore learning.
Mark Zuckerburg has a lot to answer for, disrupting as he has the lives of my children. However, he is also very smart and rich, so being annoying must have something going for it. When pitching the $5 billion Facebook float in 2012, Zuckerburg wrote to...
How can ‘ordinary’ manufacturing SME’s benefit from Federal grant ‘survival’ funding?
The Federal Government committed to a $15 Billion National Reconstruction Fund' in the October 2022 budget. While the 7 priority areas have been articulated, and there is a better than average website full of glossy photos and optimistic copy, we are waiting on...
Australia Day, 2023. A day of reckoning?
January 26 again, how quickly it comes around. It seems only yesterday I was scratching my brain to put together the 2022 missive without being too rude, utterly distracted by the stink coming from the then government and its tin ear. My distrust of the body...
How will AI impact most on marketing?
Considering my definition of marketing as being: 'The identification, development, leveraging and defence of competitive advantage' it makes sense to consider the impact of AI, as it is happening all around us. Largely unnoticed until the explosive birth of...
Why is the Liberal party so obsessed with Karansebes?
Monty Python would struggle to come up with the tangled mess that is the Liberal party, nationally and in most states. Nationally, retreating as contemplated by their leader to the right, seems self-defeating, especially while the ghost of the recent past...
A disturbing tale of two strategies
Eddie Jones is back as the Wallabies coach, a week after being sacked by England rugby, despite a contract that took him past the world cup in France starting in September. Under Jones, England did very well from 2015 to 2021, having a 73% win record. A dismal 2022...
The ‘Frame problem’ and marketing
At the intersection of the science of the brain and Artificial Intelligence, is something called 'The Frame Problem' This is a term used to describe the way we, subconsciously, sort the relevant from the irrelevant in any context, or 'frame'. It locates the...