Product and Service Strategy
Next Page »Harvard Business School Prof. Clay Christensen notes the extreme difficulty in creating successful new products. Each year approximately 30,000 new consumer products enter the marketplace and 95 percent of them fail. How then can product developers find that needle in the haystack?
Read more...In the past six months, both AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) have altered their mobile data service price structures. First, they added a metered fee based on the megabytes of traffic. Now, Verizon is considering a price structure based on the speed of traffic provided. With all these new forms of charges, some have feared customer backlash: defection, brand betrayal, and a public relations nightmare. Yet they needn’t worry much. Both these titans are in well traversed territory.
Read more...In my research, what I learned was that despite the fact that most companies are committed to the concept of differentiation, at any given moment they are also intensely aware of what their competitors are doing, and it is this competitive vigilance that ultimately pushed them down a path of conformity.” Youngme Moon, HBS Professor and author of “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd”
Read more...Are you ready for the new paradigms? Do you have a Kindle or iPad for reading books? Do you read your daily newspaper on-line? What kind of home entertainment system do you have connected to your High Definition TV that will allow you to see movies, previously available only at the video store or from a vending machine? What must a successful company do to survive and thrive in this environment?.
Read more...Recent issues of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been particularly rich in their commentaries of heretofore magnificent corporations who have fallen on hard times. In particular: Toyota, Palm and Blockbuster. ?
Read more...Fresh from its fabulous success with the iPod and iPhone, Steve Jobs has unveiled the latest in Apple’s “iPortfolio,” the iPad. Amid all the hoopla of a major media unveiling, there are some obvious elements of a classic marketing mistake.
Read more...Now that the recession seems to be ending and the slow recovery process is under way, a new vision of the post-recession economic environments is beginning to take shape. And, the picture is a lot different than it was before the economy’s free fall.
Read more...The current recession has been longer, deeper, and generally more damaging than any other since the great depression. As we move past the recessionary scramble to survive and into some semblance of a recovery, no intelligent executive should expect things to return to the way they were. Research into customer behavior is showing two general trends: (1) Demand is not only generally lower, but also the demand that does exist is at a lower price point. (2) This shift in customer demand and preferences is likely to persist for the foreseeable future. If the world has changed, so must strategy:
Read more...Choice is good, more choice is better … or is it? Is it always better to offer customers more choices, or should companies restrict the choices available to customers in some situations?
Read more...Microsoft has continues their thrust into the enterprise software market with their recent acquisition and expansion of their security software. As they do so, they enter a crowded space led by industry titans such as Symantec. To get a feel as to how entrenched competitors are reacting to the expansion plans of an otherwise industry [...]
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