The Manager's View

How can you determine if your company is at risk of attack from a disruptive technology? How can you take advantage of the next wave of business opportunities? Clearly, if you can answer these questions you are well on your way to becoming the next billionaire. Since finding the answers will be challenging it is important to identify a process to review industries and businesses and discover indicators that might identify opportunities. Clayton Christensen’s theories on disruptive technologies can provide some insights. His theories show that disruptive technologies often are created when industry leaders’ products have been improved to the point that a significant share of the market’s customers do not want or need all of the product’s attributes. This allows a new market entrant to provide a lower cost “good enough” product that doesn’t have all of the “bells and whistles” of the industry leader’s product. This new entrant will attract the leas...

How do you grow a business when you simply don’t have the resources to focus on new opportunities? How do you attract new talent that can bring new business without adding a financial burden to your organization? Forming business alliances is an approach that is being used today to meet these challenges. Retail Opportunities A major retail grocery chain uses an alliance to provide sushi bars in its retail stores. The grocer contacted a small sushi catering service and asked if the caterer would be interested in finding individuals to set up sushi bars in the retail stores. In return the grocer would use its buying power to provide sushi ingredients at the lowest possible rate and keep track of sales through its registers. Further the grocery company would subtract the cost of goods sold and simply pay the caterer a percentage of the profit of each sushi item sold. The caterer found a source of individuals willing to set up and man the sushi bars in the grocery stores ...

The Dilemma Today there are so many options for businesses to advertise their products or services to consumers that the decision making process becomes difficult at best. The new technologies allow new methods of reaching potential customers and new marketing techniques provide different approaches to segmenting groups into meaningful audiences.   It seems that each advertising medium has a logical story that suggests it is the best medium to use to reach current and potential customers. Here are some steps that will help design an effective ad campaign. Determine the Job To Be Done A business may want to reinforce relationships with current customers, attract new customers, introduce a new product, create a need for a product or build an image. These are but a few of the jobs that may need accomplished and they each may require a different mode of advertising.   The media that will work best will depend on the audience to be reached. It is likely that a...

How can you determine if the latest new product idea will be a success?  As the potential organizational impact of a new product introduction increases it becomes more important to find ways to improve the chances that the product will be a success. In previous blogs I have talked about steps to create a new product: http://gwrresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/want-to-find-new-product-for-business.html I have also talked about a new product development process: http://gwrresearch.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-product-development-process.html The product creation process and the new product development process provide a structure to methodically develop and bring a product to market. These tools however do not determine the chances that the marketing strategy for the new product will be a success. A concept test provides a simple inexpensive way to determine the appropriate marketing strategy and to project potential sales. Here are the steps for implementing a ...

Business is built on relationships that start with individuals and grow to include groups and institutions. Community involvement is an excellent means of creating opportunities to meet individuals and develop meaningful relationships. Whether you are a large company or a small, family-run operation relationships built through community involvement pays big dividends.   For companies considering how to get involved in the community, here are some pointers for choosing the best activities for your company. 1) Don’t choose too many activities. Stay within the bounds of your financial and human resources. The goal here is to have a successful business that grows and participates in the community. 2) Choose activities that help employees grow in the community and develop new networks. Most Chambers of Commerce have Leadership programs for developing community leaders. These programs are excellent and bring long-term benefits for the organization and the employee...