General
While everyone is talking about the need for innovation to serve as the growth catalyst for U.S. businesses, job growth and the economy overall, a group of leaders in the Tri-Valley region is taking action.Last week, the Innovation Tri-Valley initiative (ITV) was launched at a gathering of over 300 regional business, educational, civic and political leaders (news story and press release).
Marty Beard, the key executive leading the Innovation Tri-Valley effort and President of Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, In., recently explained that, “What we are doing in the Tri-Valley may very well be defining a new model for regions around the U.S. to get moving again as leaders in innovation. It is not only an opportunity to leverage the tremendous assets we have, but also a need and an obligation as leaders to do this for our companies and for our country.” Marty’s enthusiasm, determination and drive have helped rally a highly diverse group of leaders into what has become a collaborative effort across the region. (more…)
In doing analysis for web company that provides online solutions for managing commercial and residential contractor bids and work processes, we were looking for examples of great technology integration stories. We immediately raised up the seamless integration between the iPod and iTunes as a great customer experience. It is so easy that there is no user manual needed, but this is a rare exception.
In looking for other ideas, I was thinking about integration between Google Maps and GPS devices and searched Google for examples. (more…)
It is interesting to see how the complex system of consumer spending, retail and the general economy are playing against each other this holiday season. Helen Bulwik, our retail expert at Bedrock Dissero, was recently interviewed for an ABC-TV report on retail trends in 2009. In this she pointed out that in 2008, there were 70+ percent discounts on products prior to Christmas. This was necessary to get shoppers into stores and behind the scenes, there was a great amount of excess inventory that retailers knew needed to be reduced quickly in the face of weak consumer demand.
As the economy continues to remain in tough shape, companies have held to the mantra that “cash is king.” This is certainly true as companies use cash reserves to maintain operations, while revenues falter. However, there is a second “king” that is emerging in importance as well. That is the customer.
During the booming economy, many companies were able to take consumer demand for granted at a macro level. The more products offered, the more stores opened, the greater the revenues. It was simple. This translated into less attention to truly delivering great customer experiences in terms of meeting true needs or offering excellent customer service. There is a building awareness of the need to re-focus companies from solely driving on internal operations efficiencies and financial structures and into delivering great customer experiences.
Some companies, such as Apple and Southwest Airlines were already focused on customer experience well before the economic meltdown and are faring the downturn much better.
As we enter the normal stategic and business planning season it is clear that things are different this cycle. We are all being forced to ask tough questions about how we’ll invest, carefully, for 2010. I’ve been in several strategic planning sessions with both clients and in our own company where a single question is disturbing the status quo. The question boils down to asking, “is our current business model and approach over-engineered and over-built…and if so, how do we get it right for the coming years?” There is a fantastic Wired Magazine article you can use to spark the right conversation within your team that will help you target investments in the right areas.
A recent article in BNET was somewhat scolding executives for needing to go to ‘Strategic Planning 101′ in response to a Dartmouth Professor’s claim that newspaper publishers are just sitting around and whining, while their businesses go in the tank.
A clip from the article shows a somewhat insulting list of what Strategic Planning 101 is all about. Usually I just ignore this type of advice, but in this case it was so far off the mark, I had to comment.
______________________ARTICLE CLIP___________________
Strategic Planning 101
- Get a bunch of smart people in a room together … without cell phones and Blackberrys
- Have somebody present a completely honest analysis of the competitive situation
- Throw out all the sacred cows and preconceived notions
- Brainstorm new ideas until you can’t stand to look at each other anymore
- Vote on them, take the top ten, assign each to an executive to develop a business plan
- Meet back, present the plans, debate, decide on one or two to implement, and execute
At least you’d think that’s what they’re doing, right? All those high-paid executives with fiduciary responsibility can’t just be sitting around complaining and waiting to die. Or can they? What do you think? Do Syd and I expect too much from officers and directors that shareholders depend upon to make their investment worthwhile?
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This misguided view of what strategic planning has two major gaps that are the undoing of most efforts to set and execute strategy. (more…)
There is a natural reaction when a major disruption in business occurs to go into survival mode. That means tunnel and short-term vision as well as tactical and reactionary measures. That can be a necessity for survival. However, a recent poll of the Strategic Planning Community (SPC), a business social network of strategic planners hosted by the Association of Strategic Planning (ASP), shows that for the most part, the knee-jerk reactions to the downturn have passed and most companies are moving towards more strategic moves. (more…)
According to a recent IDC Global Retail Insights survey, 75% of retailers and 58% of consumer products manufacturers rank customer-centricity among top 3 keys to success. This finding aligns perfectly with our experience that the only way big ideas turn into big results is when those ideas are based in a deep understanding of customer needs and are executed by delivering a winning customer experience. There are some breakthroughs in approaches to listening to customers and tapping into their innovative ideas that the most innovative companies are applying today. Below are some simple descriptions and first implementation steps you can take to moving down this path.
1) Listen to customers, but listen closer to non-customers.
This is similar to to the idea of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Sometimes you learn more by listening to those who don’t see things your way than those who already agree. This tip is one very commonly overlooked when developing strategies for growth. Many companies listen to their sales force to understand strategic customer needs. This is one perspective, but the conversations tend to be short-term focused, are clouded by the vendor/customer relationship dynamic, and represent people who already see the world the way you do.
With the Wii, Nintendo converted non-customers of gaming systems by listening and creating a solution that moms would love to have in their homes. Southwest airlines converted non-customers of air travel by creating a price point and casual travel feel that matched bus travel, but was much faster. Netbooks are converting non-customers of expensive laptops into mobile computing users.
IMPLEMENTATION: To get started listening to non-customers, set up a specific research effort to call on customers who have left your business, sales leads which were lost, and targeting potential customers who have never been reached at all. Test if there is a lack of awareness of your company, a disagreement about the value proposition, or an unmet set of needs that you could begin to serve. This is where many breakthrough strategies originate.
2) Engage customers in open and direct innovation online
The most innovative companies are turning to a new set of online solutions to engage customers directly and openly into the innovation process. Cisco has been one of the most forward and successful, perhaps finding it’s next $1 billion product category through an online innovation campaign. They leveraged an online tool set from Bright Idea Software (Dissero’s strategic partner) to launch an open innovation contest that allowed anyone from around the world to suggest ideas, have them voted on by others, and collaborate and shape ideas together. The new solutions provide ways to open up and capture innovative ideas, engage with customers directly, and provide tools that filter the ideas so you can easily harvest only the best and most popular ideas for consideration internally. This allows you to truly tap the wisdom of the crowd, but not be overwhelmed with too many random and tactical ideas…like the old suggestion boxes that we’ve all come to detest. This is new technology, with new capabilities and a real breakthrough in business strategy.
Watch the video on this page to hear more about how Cisco did this and what the program accomplished. http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/iprize/index.html
Lego toys launched a site to let users design and purchase their own kits, which other people can purchase as well. http://factory.lego.com/
Starbucks created the My Starbucks Idea site to gather direct customer input for new ideas of all types. These are voted on by others so the best ideas can rise to the surface. http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
IMPLEMENTATION: If you are interested in creating your own customer innovation site there are many considerations on technology platform, scope of ideas to request, and internal innovation management process to harvest the benefits. Dissero has partnered with Bright Idea Software to provide a full solution to quickly and easily get you in touch with your customers and begin tapping their innovative ideas, creating new revenue streams and great loyalty. The good news is that almost immediately and for the cost of a typical “ideation” brainstorming workshop or offsite with your management team, you can put in place a pilot program to engage customers, employees, and partners in searching for innovations. This will become as pervasive as having customer panels or user groups and much more extensive and powerful.
This month we published, with SPI Research, a white paper focused on how to successfully transform professional services organizations (PSOs). PSOs have an ability to rapidly scale and drive greater profitability if you have the right focus and ability to transform smoothly. Since PSOs are people-driven businesses, they have an ability to change very rapidly, but also are at the greatest risk in hitting roadblocks to change as well.
The white paper points out the specific reason why PSO transformations typically fail to reach their desired results due to the use of under-scoped and limited tools of change management and business process re-engineering solutions alone. A complete framework for transformation and a streamlined and proven transformation process are described. The paper also shares some breakthough statistics from the 2009 Professional Services Maturity Model that clearly tie leadership and strategic focus to greater profitability and overall performance.
For a copy of the white paper - click here.
On Thursday, February 5th, the Association for Corporate Growth is holding their annual West Coast M&A Conference. I’ll be presenting on the topic of “M&A Integration…Shaken Not Stirred.” Too many M&A deals end with results that don’t justify the cost or effort of the transaction. Often this happens because companies try too carefully to not disrupt the existing orgnaizaitons and never get to the true value of combining companies. The event is at the SF Palace Hotel and will run from 8am to 6:30pm. If you are interested in attending, you can click here for more information.
ABOUT
Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.