Ira Kalb Assistant Professor of Clinical Marketing, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California Depending on the year you start counting, the lifespan of a Fortune 500 company has gone from 75 years to just 15. In our fast-moving ever-changing world, new technologies and products are disrupting businesses and entire industries at an accelerating [...]
The following is an excerpt from Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire by Braden Kelley:Too often we treat people as commodities that are interchangeable and maintain the same characteristics and aptitudes. Of course, we know that people are not interchangeable, yet we continually pretend that they are anyway — to make life simpler for our reptile brain [...]
The fifth of our Seven Pillars of a Better Business is “Stick to the knitting – and stand out from the crowd”. Remarkably, nearly nine out of ten businesses who achieve consistent profitable growth achieve that growth by selling more of their existing products/services to their existing customers and other people just like them. The [...]
Wish you could quickly come up with new product ideas for your business? You can. You just need to ask the right questions... 1. Neglected Niches In any industry there will be several niches that, for some reason, have been unattractive to bigger players or perhaps aren’t served at all. How can you serve [...]
Products that have stood the test of time for decades are falling by the wayside at an alarming rate 24/7 Wall St. has created a new list of brands that will disappear, which includes Sears, Sony Pictures, American Apparel, Nokia, Saab, A&W All-American Foods Restaurants, Soap Opera Digest, Sony Ericsson, MySpace, and Kellog's Corn Pops. Each [...]
All strategists grapple with the question of how to create and preserve competitive advantage. But individual perspectives are likely to differ, depending on a company’s strategic journey, the industry it’s in, and the idiosyncrasies of the organization. We talked with four current or former senior strategists from diverse corporate environments and markets about their strategic [...]
Harley-Davidson is almost as famous for its brand community as it is for its motorcycles. So how has it successfully nurtured and supported its passionate customer community for decades? MyCustomer.com spoke with Markus Kramer, director of marketing operations for Harley-Davidson Europe, at European Customer Experience World 2010 to find out what the company's secrets are - [...]
YouTube is now generating over 2 billion views per day with the average user spending 15 minutes per day on the site according to the video-sharing platform’s latest blog post. http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/3013520.article?cmpid=MWE01&cmptype=newsletter
Do some of your customers and prospects treat you like a commodity? If they do, you’re likely competing on price far more than you’d like. Companies and industries that slide into commoditization almost always have a better option. There’s always a way to identify, quantify and communicate significant incremental value and results for your clients [...]
