Nov 2, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing, Small business
We talk about vision, mission, and all the rest, but at a more fundamental level, evolving a point of view, shared throughout the firm, about the “shape” and trends of the industries we are in, and those of the industries we intersect with, is a really basic thing to do.
Having a point of view about the “green” economy enabled GE to start their “Ecomagination” program before climate change was on the general agenda, it enabled them to disrupt their own light bulb business with the compact flouro, and it drives their current efforts to rebuild their huge medical devices business by developing small, cheap, mobile devices that fulfill a more basic need in developing countries .
All this because Jeff Immelt developed a point of view, and drove it through the business as a catalyst for massive and disruptive innovation.
Have you developed a “point of view” about your industry, and the role your business will take? Few are as influential as GE, able to change the “shape” of their industries by their actions, but it is no less important for small firms to have a point of view, and a plan to deal with the “shaping” influences as they emerge.
Nov 1, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Marketing
The path to free will be a major challeneg for the current century, as the price of stuff follows the marginal cost of producing it down to virtually free.
Music is effectively free off the web, despite the best efforts of the music industry, yet the other parts of the industry are doing well, tours, merchandise, the amount of product is increasing, devices like the iPod are booming, just the sales of the CD’s are tanking.
Software is now largely for free, you can still pay full whack for Windows or Office if you like, but few outside corporate do so, and there are thousands of “apps” emerging for devices that are very cheap, approaching free, and streaming of movies is increasingly happening, although as the penetration of Blue-ray increases, it will slow the “free” uptake a bit as people figure out how to beat the security.
What about games?
They are still $99 from the retailer in the mall, and when a new blockbuster comes out, the retailers are packed with kids buying them, the same kids who would not pay for a new song from their favorite artist. Why are the games not yet for free?? Will it happen?? Inevitably.
Anything that can be digitised will follow the road to (almost) free, the money will be made in the value adding products and services, the way Red Hat Have made a business providing service to free Linux software users, and Apple have made a business out of selling the iPod when the music is essentially free.
However, you will probably still have to pay for your carrots down at the green grocers.
Oct 28, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Management
In a world of disruptive change, the perhaps usual path to the CEO’s office needs to be rethought.
Over the last 50 years, CEO’s have largely come from accounting and business management backgrounds, more latterly, marketing & strategy have had their shot, but in a world changing at such a huge rate, it makes sense to source the CEO from the ranks of the product and design people.
Would the US car industry be in such a mess if the top blokes came from the engineering and innovation streams, instead of from the financial side that crushed innovation under the cruel hand of spreadsheets that assumed more of the same, only better?
Elon Musk, creator of Paypal, where he took on the banks, and Tesla, the first fully electric car, is an entrepreneur with an engineering background and a profoundly restless mind, who just believes, and who has created 3 hugely innovative businesses that destroyed the status quo. What could such a person have done at General Motors with the resources of that former giant at his disposal.
Oct 15, 2009 | Innovation, Leadership, Management
It is not the words of a company vision that count, as much as the conversation that goes on around the water cooler about the purpose of an organisation. The notion of including all personnel in a conversation about business purpose is very effective.
Sam Palmisano, current CEO of IBM conducted a “Values Jam” on the IBM intranet over 3 days a few months after his appointment. This generated 40,000 “conversations” about purpose across the business, with Sam acting as both participant and final arbiter.
The outcome is a set of words that has stood IBM in great stead over the last 6 years, and all employees know, they have the opportunity to contribute.
Subsequently, the “jam” concept has been used by IBM to inform a range of other issues from their internal innovation “jam” in 2006 which resulted in 10 new businesses with $100 million in seed funding, to the 2008 “habitat jam” held on behalf of the UN.
These activities only work because they unleash the power of a common purpose in their participants, have you considered how to unleash the power of your networks?
Oct 11, 2009 | Innovation, Management, Marketing, Small business
It is easy to see opportunities outside the “home base” often easier than seeing them close to home. However, success comes with exploiting potential in existing markets before you “export” resources to chasing new ones. Chase market penetration, cost reduction, value and innovation in your home and adjacent markets before you bet the farm on a new one.
These closer to home opportunities are rarely as sexy as building a business in a new area, but often they come with less risk, and investment, and usually a greater payoff.
Innovation is front and centre in this process of leveraging the existing base, but it is the grunt work of implementation, continuous innovation in small ways, and focus that will win.
My definition of marketing, not found in any textbook I have read is:
“Marketing is the identification, development, protection and leveraging of competitive advantage”
I have found if you apply this definition to all the activities of an enterprise, looking at each for its contribution to at least one of these parameters, your marketing focus will be crystal clear, and the process of sorting out strategy, and the supporting allocation of resources will be considerably eased.
Sep 24, 2009 | Innovation, Management, Marketing
Seth Godin is once again ahead of the wave with the launch of Brands In Public.
The logic is simple, today, you cannot control the conversations that occur about your brand or business, they happen across the myriad of access points to the web, so the next best thing is to assemble the conversations at a common point, and give yourself the opportunity to participate.
Brands in public gathers the conversations, and offers a point of intersection between these conversations and the brand owner. At least, you then have a place at the table to counter the nonsense, put forward the facts, and perhaps add a bit of steerage to the process.
Wonderful idea, so obvious with hindsight, executed with simplicity.
