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 …
How do you establish Brand U value? This is done two ways: 1. through lifelong learning and 2. constant personal innovation. “Innovation has become the industrial religion of the late 20th century,” says The Economist.[i] Businesses view innovation as the key to capture markets and increase profits. We’ll discuss two types of innovation in this …
Products: Something produced by human or mechanical effort or by a natural process; a direct result.[i] A major theme of this book is that we’re all leaders of our Brand U destinies, or CEO of our careers. In other words, we are all portable producers of value. As a product, we may offer a courteous …
As business and life become more complex, companies are losing their ability to keep up by following their present practices. This delta, the growing distance between the complexity of business practices and present practices, is the zone where Brand U’s excel. This zone is where the organizational pain is highest and is where Brand U’s …
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that happiness is all about flow. Happiness results when Brand U’s are totally absorbed in what we are doing. Brand U’s don’t achieve happiness directly by pursuing it. Happiness results when we forget time and are one with what we are doing. In athletics, this is called a peak experience or being …
Smile and laugh a lot Be optimistic Meditate or have quiet time daily Get a massage Exercise religiously Have a support circle or lots of friends Find your life/work/career flow Deal with problems Get over it
Values, culture, principles and ethics are now organizational core competencies for success. In much the same way, our individual value is our core proficiencies of life long happiness and success. Core values may include respecting individual dignity, integrity, and honesty. Core values become ingrained in the way we act and think. Values and principles then …
The virtual team is a project team of Brand U’s that delivers products or services to customers with the external appearance of a single company. A core group usually originates the idea and pulls resources together to actualize the idea. Examples of virtual organizations include special project teams, telecommuting teams, supplier partnerships, global consulting organizations, …
The traditional work ethic implied work was static. A person went to the same place to work each day, had the same duties, had the same boss, and had the same customers. The Brand U workplace can be at home or in an automobile. Duties change depending on customer requirements of the moment. Brand U …
To stay competitive, Brand U companies are shaving costs, killing marginal product brands, cutting product lines, reengineering processes, outsourcing non-core processes, projectizing work, and reducing suppliers. Products and services that routinely increased in price each year are now stabilizing as competitive pressures and customer resistance cap price increases. This is also occurring in Brand U …