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Monthly Archives: March 2012
Encouraging evolution protects against revolution.
Evolution happens in most circumstances in the absence of strong ‘anti-evolution” measures, and often even then, generally there is stuff happening at the fringes. However, rigid barriers hold back change, until like the boy in the dyke, you run out … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Innovation, Strategy
Tagged Change, change management, performance assessment, Politics, supply chain
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Digital marketing or marketing in a digital world?
It is all a matter of perspective. Digital marketing implies an application of the existing disciplines of marketing, just tweaked a bit to accommodate the presence in the environment of digital options, facebook, linkedin, Pin it, and the rest. Marketing … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Communication, Innovation, Social Media
Tagged Change, change management, communication, Marketing, Social Media
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Politics Vs Organisational dynamics
“Politics” is a dirty corporate word, but “Organisational Dynamics” appears to be OK, and is gaining traction as a cliché. What is the difference? Both describe the process of accumulating the wherewithal to exercise influence, and dictate outcomes. It is … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership, Management
Tagged Leadership, Management, performance assessment, Politics
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Anatomy of a failed sales pitch.
I walked into a retail store last week, the salesperson wandered up, big smile, “How can I help you” he said. Good start, better than the usual “Can I help?” which has as a possible answer, “No thanks, just looking”. … Continue reading
Crowdsourced funding for SME’s.
Blogs, facebook, web sites, and e-books have all bypassed the mass model of publishing, enabling huge numbers of people a creative outlet not available before 2000, but there is still the need for seed-funding. Raising the modest amounts of money … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Innovation, Small business
Tagged Change, collaboration, Innovation, SME, Social Media
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Management tax.
Not the latest desperate revenue raising measure from a proliferate government, but the cost to stakeholders of the multiple levels of management that infest most large organisations, but which add no direct value. Management manages, it manages those underneath them, … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Personal Rant
Tagged category management, Change, communication, Management, performance assessment
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Common language and common understanding.
In a recent negotiation, a good faith, and non confrontational negotiation conducted in English between one of my clients and a prospective investor from East Asia who spoke virtually fluent but non colloquial English, we suffered from a misunderstanding emerging … Continue reading
Marketing problem of the climate debate.
Marketing is all about defining the problem we want to solve, poor definition leads to poor analysis and solution implementation. In the climate “debate” to give it more credit that it deserves, we have absolutely failed to include the capital … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy
Tagged climate change, Leadership, Politics, Strategy
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Crowdsourcing electricity
On March 14, IPART, the NSW Utility regulator made public a decision that put a price of 6-8 cents for energy exported to the grid, compared to the current cost of 30-44 cents for any power consumed from the grid. … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Innovation, Strategy
Tagged change management, climate change, Innovation, Politics
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Process, not outcomes.
It takes discipline to concentrate on the process, and to let the outcome take care of itself, recognising that there will be stumbles along the way, but in the long run, the results will come when the process is optimised. … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Operations
Tagged Management, managing yourself, performance assessment, Value chain
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Strategy leads to action
I am a strategist, with a marketing background, so sometimes the expectation is that there will be a lot of talk. Often, and too often with many of those I see, that is the case. Talk, talk, talk, and talk. … Continue reading
Challenges of Produce Marketers
Produce marketers are not all that different to most FMCG marketers, except that the power of the retailer in produce categories is magnified by the total lack of proprietary branding, effectively insulating the consumer from the producer, making brand building … Continue reading
Go where your customers go
Rarely does anything happen behind a desk, so why do you spend so much time there? Just like the old saying “the harder I work, the luckier I get” small business owners should say “the more customers I see, the … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Marketing, Sales
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Margins Vs R.O.F.E. for retail
Retailing is under pressure, all the established retailers are suffering declines in profitability, and the media is full of retail CEO’s bemoaning the eroding margins. Australians appetite for flat screen TV’s over the last couple of years were is amazing, … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Operations
Tagged category management, change management, customer, Management, performance assessment, retailer, supply chain
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“We must be on Facebook”.
This is a pretty common call amongst the junior marketing staff of my clients, most of them are familiar with facebook, they use it in their personal lives to fill a whole range of functions. When asked “Why must we … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Tagged communication, Marketing, Social Media
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Social media records shattered.
The phenomena that has been the Kony video over the last week, garnering over 67 million views at the time of writing this, on Sunday morning in Australia, has rewritten the Social media and charity fund raising record books. If … Continue reading
FMCG business model disrupted.
Out with the old mass market advertising and business model, and in with the new. I shave, it costs a fortune, so much that I switched to disposable shavers without all the fatuous claims and high prices of the big … Continue reading
Customer eyes and voice.
As a marketer my basic mantra has been “see it through the customers eyes”, simple and effective. Recently while mentoring a great young sales person for a client, I noticed that even though she asked the right questions at the … Continue reading
Social media is just a toolbox.
The social tools of the net do not create collaboration, that urge is hard-wired into us. The net simply removes the barriers, and changes the rules about the means. Now we no longer have to be able to have personal … Continue reading
Intellectual bravery
It is pretty easy to avoid making that confronting customer call, stand up and articulate an idea at odds with the boss, conduct an experiment conventional wisdom says will fail. The price for not doing this stuff is pretty low, … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, Leadership
Tagged Change, communication, Innovation, Leadership
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