applied know how
Earlier this year, private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor (www.stratfor.com) , recently published its Decade Forecast in which it projects the next 10 years of global political and economic developments.
While international analysts often try their hand at predicting the major events of the coming year, Stratfor believes that it’s identified the major trends of the next 10.
One challenge new GMs will we face is how to build a strategy or reposition a business with a new strategy. Let me tell you a story. I was in San Francisco with some customers, flying to Las Vegas, booked on Southwest Airlines. As usual we milled around the departure gate, like you did then, waiting to board, having never flown Southwest. … Read more
There is a whole literature about success being born from failure.
And, yes, in essence I agree with this big idea; that only through testing yourself and accepting that your testing could produce failures, can you create a successful business, strategy, approach, career etc.
As a new General Manager, you’ll be counselled by your HR team to be tolerant of failure, to support failure, to even encourage failure as a means to speed success.… Read more
The short answer to this question is deceptively simple- keep the strategy as long as it continues to work.
But lets look into this further, and with an example from Disney that I discovered in an article in HBR by Todd Zenger and which I have sued in my teaching at SMU.
I love this diagram from 1947. It shows Walt Disney’s original strategy, and importantly, the linkages between the various elements of Disney’s then business.… Read more
For Board members or for non-commercial executives thinking about the commercial area of their business branding, marketing and advertising occupies most focus and sales is left pretty much to fend for itself.
This mindset is to be regretted, as sales must offer the business many opportunities to add value in building and retaining a strong customer network. I have seen too many great brands with fantastic advertising flounder because no one could buy their product, or retailers or wholesalers were constantly out of stock or pricing did not reflect brand values. … Read more