Strategic Plan For A Better Christmas Situation: Stress at this time of year skyrockets, both personally and professionally Recession and unemployment woes significantly lower anticipated Christmas spending (source: Gallup). The meaning of Christmas can become obscured Objective: A Better, More Meaningful Christmas Strategy 1: Find The Deeper Meaning(s) of Christmas Tactic: Decide what Christmas is […]
(Companies can come up with novel ways to differentiate themselves from the competition: product features, packaging, service, marketing approaches. But when the difference is shallow, that is, when it isn’t hardwired into an advantaged business design, it is easily replicated and the difference disappears. This three part series of short blog posts on my old […]
Killing bad ideas is really easy. In fact, it’s so easy to kill any idea that common “ground rules” are used during brainstorming sessions to keep ideas alive long enough to see if they have any merit. Actually, there are a lot of stupid ideas that come out of brainstorming sessions and most should be […]
Well, I’m not really big enough to “poke the bear”. I’m more like a flea. If you haven’t ever heard the phrase, it refers to “going up against a competitive giant knowing the potential response will be massive”. At least that’s what one of my favorite cartoonists, Tom Fishburne, says. And how might I be […]
No, not that kind of hog. I grew up on a farm and I’ve never seen a pig bounce. A bear, yes. I’m talking about Harley Davidson who trades under the symbol HOG. I had lunch with a leader and friend there and they’re working hard to put bounce into their company. Can they do […]
The current trajectory for the cost of health care is unsustainable. The average annual premium for family health care coverage is already $13,375 and at the present rate of growth will be over $31,000 ten years from now. It’s not only busting family budgets, it’s causing serious disruption to the cost structures of American business. […]
Yesterday, I had lunch with the man, Bob, who was affectionately dubbed “The Father of Lunchables” by admiring colleagues at the Oscar Mayer Division of Kraft Foods. I worked with and for him for a few years. Most of you won’t know this but his innovation, leadership, development and refinement of Lunchables launched a whole […]
In his book The Design of Business, Roger Martin describes how companies explore and then exploit new knowledge. It’s a terrific read on the subject of design thinking and I recommend it highly. Martin describes how new knowledge progresses through a funnel. It moves through phases from discovery (the exploration of mysteries) to heuristic (the […]
Competing in the food industry is tough business. Margins are slim, gaining a fraction of a share point costs big bucks, and innovation is… well, it’s the food industry. But there’s another type of innovation that drives competitive advantage: technical innovation. The Institute of Food Technologists just held its annual conference, IFT 2010, at McCormick […]
And the winner at Shopper Insights in Action 2010 sponsored by IIR US for the biggest dollar impact in their industry is… Bruce Vierck, RTC and Rebecca MacKay, Dairy Management, Inc.! At least that’s what I’m guessing. And, yes, the result of the action they took on key insights if fully rolled out would be […]
