We’ve been hearing for the last couple of years of new Web models and processes. A company can become humungous developing a new business process. However, there’s no sure Web bet. Companies even within same industries are developing different business models. A key question for all Brand U’s is: ”What’s the best model and which …
Amazon.com has forever redefined the book selling and publishing business. Amazon.com started as an online bookseller. Well it’s morphing its core business, which started as selling books, but now includes collecting customer information and moving into new markets. Amazon is now profiling customers’ desires and bundling products and services that appeal to these customers. Over …
New ideas! Hot products! Killer software applications! They’re all the rage these days. Brand U companies want to develop the next hot new product. Brand U entrepreneurs want to develop the next hot new idea. Commercializing technology is taking place at breathtaking speed. What Brand U geeks played with several years ago, we now use …
“Innovating has become the buzz-word of American management. Firms have found that most of the things that can be outsourced or reengineered have been (worryingly, by their competitors as well). The stars of American business tend today to be innovators, such as Dell, Amazon, and Wal-Mart, which have produced ideas or products that have changed …
Technology is running ahead of our abilities to understand and manage. We’re inundated with new tools. But, what induces us to use the new tools? Last summer, a friend and I were fishing in the mountain lakes of central Oregon. The biggest city, Bend was 40 miles away. Beep … beep … beep from his …
Processes: A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result.[i] Markets move to the most efficient processes. And, organizations move to the most effective processes. The difference? Market efficiency means moving to supply/demand processes where things can be done more quickly and at least cost. Organizational effectiveness means developing the ‘right’ internal processes …
Brand U people operate under a new set of priorities and protocols. If a customer or employer has dissimilar principles, then Brand U workers often bail. Employers once would guarantee lifetime employment for loyalty. Well, that’s pretty much gone. So the critical question facing all employers is how to establish a new psychological contract with …
According to Treacy and Wiersma, a Brand U company competes on one of three value disciplines, specifically on operational value, product leadership, or customer intimacy. Operationally excellent companies offer middle-of-the-market products at a competitive price with the least convenience. Product-leader companies offer products that push performance boundaries while customer-intimate companies deliver products and services that …
Now, this has changed. Customers want competitive telephone or cellular rates at the same level of quality service. Unfortunately, there’s a trade‑off because customers want a higher level of service at a lower price. AT&T wanted to change its traditional culture of service at any cost to a Brand U culture that pays attention to …
The Brand U message is to depersonalize the situation, understand what’s happened, fix it, and move on. This attitude shift from ‘them’ to ‘me’ is a significant change in our perceptions of work reality. We can’t change the realities of the competitive marketplace and how companies respond. The only thing we can change is our …