Category Archives: Change Strategy

Why Authentic Value Proposition ?

The lingering pandemic, the Ukraine war, supply chain problems and inflation has all types of organizations reviewing their “value” proposition. The idea of an explicit contract in B2B and an implicit contract in B2C used to involve fewer parties. If there was a serious dispute there was arbitration, courts or government regulators who would step in and try to sort things out. No longer true in the world of instant social media. Think of Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase situation.

For everyday business it’s simply keeping your promises to your customers. To be fair, our experience is that Elon Musk is pretty good with Tesla in keeping customer promises. No matter how the Twitter acquisition plays out.

Since marketing is about customer value, it’s important to clarify the idea of value proposition in these challenging times:

Why B2B Technology markets makes switching too easy

B2B Technology markets can make switching by the customer too easy. Existing or legacy technology can become too cumbersome to use . Or refuses to realize its promise after trying for years. The client, in despair, becomes willing to try a new supplier. That supplier is willing to transfer the legacy system.

The solution is not to become sticky by merely embedding your technology in the customer’s processes. Or make the customer a hostage to your technology. Instead, it’s useful to think of what we learnt in the industrial B2B era as we continue to compete in the knowledge economy.

Leadership Style 2022: Jack Welch or Satya Nadella?

Gen X( Born 1965-1980) was willing to go along with the Baby Boomer/Jack Welch leadership style. Gen Y or Millennials ( Born 1981 to 1996) and Gen Z or Zoomers (Born 1997 – 2012) are very different. Gen Y and Z in the workforce and with the Great Resignation since the pandemic and 2021, we thought it was timely to rethink the Jack Welch style as discussed in our very popular posts on Jack Welch. When Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he made the reading of “Nonviolent Communication” by Marshall B. Rosenberg compulsory for the top management. Nadella’s predecessor Steve Balmer followed a version of the Jack Welch approach without the candor that Jack promoted at GE.

Free tracking of digital clicks to your store

With COVID vaccines all US businesses are hopeful that the pandemic will soon be behind us. Empty stores will be full of customers again!

It turns out the the smallest business with a physical storefront can now track ads from click to in-store purchase. Yes there is some work involved but all the data and analytics is free- for the Google ecosystem. For our variety of dear readers we discuss 5 different scenarios that would apply to your situation as a store owner.

AdTech Remarketing: Cookie Challenges Ahead

The announcement by Google that 3rd party cookies will be gone in Chrome in 2022 has raised great concerns among advertisers. The AdTech community of hundreds of companies will also need to figure out their approach. Here is some background on this debate:

How much should I spend on Google AdWords ?

How much should I spend on Google AdWords? is a question that we get asked very often. Earlier this blog provided a strategy answer.

[ Note: This post was originally published on October 28 , 2014. Due to the great interest of our dear readers and many changes in the digital landscape the post is updated on March 2, 2021]

Since we are happily at the vaccination stage of COVID-19 we can expect that life will return to normal in the not too distant future. However, we all realize that buyer behavior for both consumers(B2C) and businesses (B2B) has changed forever. With the huge adoption of online research and buying with COVID lockdowns and stores closed the public has become far comfortable with online commerce.

Why are impressions free in Google AdWords advertising?

Contrast the PPC model to all other traditional advertising  models like TV,Radio,Newspaper, Billboard or even Direct Mail. You pay for impressions (or potential views called Cost per Mille – CPM ) without really knowing if your prospect actually saw your ad.

The “S” Curves of radical and incremental innovation

What are the “S” curves? Each of the above S curves represent a technology platform. Movement up an “S” curve is incremental innovation while stepping down on a lower new “S” curve now, may lead to radical innovation, as the new “S” curve surpasses your existing “S” curve.

The Cost and Performance Y axis, Time on X Axis: If you look at the Y axis you see performance going up and cost coming down. Just as time goes on. In other words over time a particular S curve and technology platform gets improved. This improvement is through factors such as experience, techniques like 6 Sigma, more adoption by customer. The adoption by customer mean higher sales volumes and costs keep going down. However there is a catch for each S curve.

Move from Perfection to Excellence

In the Coronavirus age (yes it’s just six months but seems like an age!) there are great challenges and no “re-opening” strategy seems to be perfect. Organizations can just try to do their best (be excellent) instead of trying to be perfect. The virus is invisible and thus it brings the “Excellence vs. Perfection” dilemma into sharp focus.

Happy July 4th: Why think about life after the COVID Pandemic?

Tomorrow is July 4th, 2020 the American Independence day.  July 4th is the American Independence Day and a day of hope and freedom for people.Due to the recent spike in American coronavirus cases, traditional firework displays have been cancelled in regions where there is an upsurge of cases. However, there are some options to watch fireworks  and here is a nice list of virtual fire work displays. Here is our July 4th post from 2008, in the midst of the great recession.
It’s really important to start thinking about life after the global coronavirus (COVID) pandemic…. because like the great recession, we will overcome this.  Here is why we should all be hopeful this 4th of July:

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