Corporate Strategy
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Read more...Renault’s small car segment is led by Arnaud Deboeuf is earning above 6% profit margins on €7,700 cars. GM’s Opel loses $630 on every car sold in Europe. How does Renault do this and why can’t Opel?
Read more...Over the past few years, I discover more and more senior level executives who do not have a full grasp of primary business strategy drivers that drive revenue and profits. I’ve met with Chief Executive Officers (CEO) who just dismissed their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and asked “Why did you remove this person and what change in business activities do you seek in your next CMO?” Amazingly most can’t answer this basic question with a well thought out and rational answer. Part of the problem starts here.
Read more...Starting with the dot.com bubble of a few years ago, marketers have been intrigued by the new Internet technologies and their profit-making potential. Huge amounts of investment capital have flowed into these ventures and most quickly collapsed victimizing both employees and investors. Now, we find ourselves in the midst of another round of promising schemes based on the “social networking” movement. One of stars of this movement is “Twitter.” The problem is how is this concept going to make money?
Read more...Appreciating Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” contributions to market coordination based on supply, demand, and price, and understanding his argument of allowing markets to allocate goods and resources based on individual incentives, I pose the question, “How much value is created by managerial competency and organized business entities?” In other words, why do firms exist?
Read more...Why do firms exist? Why should society allow corporations to exist? What moral reason should we, as a society, allow firms to exist? At the most fundamental level, the Occupy movement is asking this question. Shouldn’t we be addressing this?
Read more...A number of years ago, I was contacted by an attorney who was representing an inventor. It seemed that inventor had created a universal cap for an automotive water heater. This cap could work as a replacement for any water heater.Like most inventors, this one happened to be mentally long on technical expertise and mentally short on the realities of the marketplace. Also, like many investors he was working on a shoe-string.
Read more...As the global economy continues to be stressed and prices for all kinds of raw materials continue to rise, manufacturers are looking for ways to preserve profits. Although manufacturers are substituting materials where they can and locking in long-term contracts to protect themselves from price hikes, they may ultimately face the conundrum of passing along rising costs in the form of price increases to their customers. Will it work? Mixed results.
Read more...And You Think Your Employees Aren’t Powerful? ...It Only Takes One! Like comparing apples and oranges? No, apples and employees! The employee that isn’t trained to exhibit excellent customer service skills or takes it upon him or herself to alienate customers is like the proverbial apple that “spoils the barrel”, creating an atmosphere that spawns negativity and steals from your bottom line. It only takes one employee to send your customers running away screaming to your nearest competitor, even in the world of electronic interactions.
Read more...The pattern is pretty similar: the erstwhile entrepreneur usually has a wonderful idea for a money-making business. Often they have done enough research to determine that their idea is unique and they haven’t found anybody else doing precisely what they have in mind. They are excited about their concept and seek advice on how to take it to the next step and go into business for themselves. Here is some of the advice I usually hand out to these entrepreneurs.
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