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Pounding the table

Customers want an experience retailers aren’t delivering

The public wants both a seamless shopping experience across any retail channel (mobile, online, in store) and is happy to research online (AKA ‘webrooming’) and buy from a brick and mortar store. These were two of the strongest conclusions in the Seamless Retail Research released by Accenture on April 15th. This isn’t a shocker for […]

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Copyright symbol

How safe is your intellectual property from theft?

The following is a guest post by Lilian Sohn. Most companies don’t give this topic the required attention. Start-up entrepreneurs and successful business leaders are often too caught up in their day-to-day tasks to take a step back and look at important, strategic decisions that could prove vital for their company, such as ways to […]

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8338023_m

Without a new approach, new banks are no better than old

This blog post looks at the promise of new entrants into the UK retail banking sector. It also discusses in general where retail banks should focus on in order to stay competitive in an industry that is marked by ever more assertive customers and disruptive technology changes. There is always a sense of expectation when […]

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fragile label

Process decides fragile and antifragile acquisitions

What type of company makes a good target to be acquired? There are the obvious revenue, strategic, market, product, and R&D considerations. Those are all opportunity plays and are in themselves good reasons, but what about the risk? How do you decide in advance which companies can be acquired without being destroyed? For that, there […]

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batman

To succeed in business you need to think like a superhero

I’m a bit of a comic book geek; I read them, collect them and chase the writer and artists to sign them. Everyone has a vice, that’s one of mine. But it got me thinking about how many lessons from comics could be translated into business life. Technology can be your superpower Look at how […]

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Exhibit, A Work In Progress

Before you spend your first dollar on social media marketing…

A year is a lot of time given the pace with which things are happening on Social Media. Yet, 2013 is likely to be the year when more organizations than ever in the past, got a sense of the great potential Social Media holds – both  in terms of establishing and fanning that powerful relationship […]

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Internet fakery

Internet fakery and protecting your brand

“Please do not vote for Obama.” That was the post that went up supposedly from Gaston Memorial Hospital in Gaston County, North Carolina. It wasn’t their post, and in fact, Gaston Memorial Hospital didn’t have a Facebook account of their own. Therein lies the problem: If we don’t claim our own identity, someone will happily claim […]

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Gartner ITxpo Barcelona 2012

Gartner says CEOs are asleep at the wheel

At the recent Gartner Summit they talked about the Nexus of Forces which are changing the face of business: “A Nexus of converging forces — social, mobile, cloud and information — is building upon and transforming user behavior while creating new business opportunities.” I covered this in more detail in a recent blog Gartner Nexus […]

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The cost of not knowing

I am exposed to organizations doing some very innovative things with their organizational processes. They are state-of-the-art in managing leveraging process-improvement tools, such as Lean, Six Sigma, or other homegrown or hybrid improvement methodologies. They focus a great deal of effort in refining processes, better managing processes, and/or reducing waste from their organizational processes. I […]

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Next Process Wave

The next wave of process strategy

When it comes to operational improvement, organizations today are light years ahead of where they were two decades ago, but there’s no time to celebrate yesterday’s wins. They won’t immunize your organization against this decade’s march of ongoing progress. That’s because information technology — not just the Internet, but also mobile devices, “big data” for […]

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Superman_by_iGamer

Process: Holding out for a hero?

A recent blog post by Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog) created one of the “POW!” moments for me. The writeup was about organizations that always deal with “problems,” and what happens when there are no more problems to solve. Problem solvers don’t function well when they don’t have any problems to solve. They often seem lost. We’re […]

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Mr Bean

Social Engagement Strategy: The Serious Business of Taking Things Lighter

Earlier this month, a Facebook user, Richard Neill put up a post that suddenly went viral. The post was a rant against Maxipad maker Bodyform alleging that they lied in their advertisements. Rather than just let it go and hope the 84,000 or so ‘likes’ would be forgotten with the next viral wave, Bodyform put up […]

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Why Killer Products Don't Sell

Why killer products don’t sell

A book summary of Why Killer Products Don’t Sell by Ian Gotts and Dominic Rowsell on Amazon as hardback or Kindle You’re a major corporation with a track record of strong sales for your current product range. You’ve worked long and hard to produce a unique, innovative product that you know the market needs. It […]

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Groundbreak

In services, the sale is only the beginning

The good salesperson is truly result-oriented. He doesn’t stop till he gets things done. So he fights a hard fight – though I am sure he would claim it was a ‘right fight’. He pushes and edges his way forward. He calls and counsels and goads. He knows when to sell hard. He knows when […]

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Drum set

Habit forming

Ever dreamt an amazing invention or a catchy song?  You wake up with every intention of harnessing the idea — “OMG, it’s amazing” —  but you can’t find a pen or a piece of paper. Or your dog jumps on the bed so you just blindly start your routine and take her out for a […]

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London 2012 Olympics

Treat organisational change like an Olympic sport, just make sure you pick the right event first

Reblogged from IT :: redux: The London Olympics has kicked off in earnest and someone reporting on the news used the phrase “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” when referring to the UK’s rather lacklustre medal count. And it got me thinking. With the economic crisis as it is everyone is treating enterprise change as […]

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