Robert Rudy's Blog

Ring Up E-Commerce Gains With a True Multi-channel Strategy

Robert Rudy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:01:39 GMT

This article from Advertising Age is somewhat geared to consumer goods categories. While it does not directly address the role of the intermediary, or face to face sales rep, often key to financial services sales, I agree with most of the concepts.

Our consulting practice has seen strong demand from clients asking us to help them build best practices multi-channel marketing models.

I like how Circuit City blends the on-line experience with an in-store experience. The hand-off across channels, and synchronization of the consumer experience is difficult, but when you pull it off, you have a very satisfied consumer. Most of our financial services clients need to synchronize across the web, a call center, and a branch-based or local agent of some type. E-Commerce continues to evolve…

Ring Up E-Commerce Gains With a True Multichannel Strategy

Bring Together Online and Brick-and-Mortar Shopping Experiences

By Michael Stich and Jim Leonard
Published in Advertising Age: March 10, 2008

Even the most forward-thinking CMOs don't know what they don't know when it comes to e-commerce integration, as they struggle to overcome a forced divide between virtual and real-world retail. As more than 50 million households in the United States regularly shop online, e-commerce strategies now face a strategic inflection point. By avoiding channel conflict, the biggest and brightest suppliers and customers today confront declining combined share. In response, they are increasingly courting core shoppers and struggling to retain them in an effort to retain channel leadership.

It's important to recognize that your shopper is already "multichannel." For some products and categories, online distribution has fundamentally changed retail (think Amazon or iTunes). For other products, the touch and feel available through brick-and-mortar retail remains king (think organic produce or luxury apparel).

The right distribution theater depends on the shopper, who shops across channels and discovers brands across media. Regardless of shopping mode, CMOs must address both need states and trip modes -- for example, time of day -- to seamlessly integrate the "distribution divide."

Forward-thinking CMOs are teaching their peers about the benefits -- indeed, the necessity -- of treating the physical retail environment as a relic of an offline world. They recognize a closing window of opportunity to secure strategic advantage over pure-play or single-channel retail. The web continues to be a gold mine of consumer research: More than 80% of Americans have researched products on the internet before purchase, according to a February 2008 Pew internet survey. These trends undermine the divide-and-lose strategy in favor of unify-and-win.

Category stewards at vendors and retailers are constructing a new working partnership. They create new experiences based on consumer habits and deliver both greater choices and tightly tied checkout across multiple channels. The road to relevance entails mastering e-commerce not as a discrete channel but as a source of killer shopper insights that fuel innovation across all distribution channels.

The first step begins with creating a distinctive e-commerce business model. E-commerce success results from jointly experimenting with four fundamental strategies: sell to a niche consumer, create a compelling business model, create a compelling product and dramatically improve the purchase experience. These strategies work consistently across categories and extend to models back in the offline world.

Sell to a niche consumer
(Think Williams-Sonoma, RadioShack, Wine.com, Zappos.) This approach offers certain consumers access to items they are unable or unwilling to find in local retail. It can be driven by product scarcity or by desire for discretion when buying items such as lingerie, for example. Stores can also push out from their limiting walls by using their websites as online catalogs for niche consumers. Some retailers have long used the model of a small footprint but huge product selection. That integration extends deeply into the multichannel world.

Create a compelling business model
(Think eBay, Amazon, Orbitz.) Online-enabled marketplaces, exchanges and direct distributors have proven enormously successful and promise fruitful outcomes for those committed to extending them to physical retail. At-the-counter experiences could build community among shoppers or provide a means of comparison shopping without leaving the store. Online recommender systems also might cross the channel divide, delighting consumers with new ideas they can act on immediately in the store.

Create a compelling product
(Think Dell, M&Ms, Nike, Nespresso.) Companies succeed here by delivering build-to-order or upgradeable products uniquely enhanced by the web. Several traditional companies are implementing this approach, delighting consumers with newly customizable choices without diluting the value of the core brand. Companies also deploy this strategy to create ongoing relationships with consumers by offering a razor-and-blade models of upgradeable features to a base product.

Dramatically improve the purchase experience
(Think Netflix, Target, Blinds.com.) Leading companies deploy this strategy to overhaul the offline consumer experience. The web is a great enabler for new payment options, a simplifier of complicated pricing schemes and a channel for giving back to the community while shopping. Recommender systems and the wisdom of crowds also reside on the web and need to find their way into the offline store. This strategy also results in integrated offerings, such as the ability to buy a product online but pick it up at a store to avoid the delay and cost of shipping.

Once CMOs develop the right collection of e-commerce strategies, they also must successfully manifest them in the store. The web's ability to capture data on purchases, shopping behavior and history is just the start. To persuade skeptics, the CMO should commission a fresh look at consumer behavior and how the brand engages consumers where they are in their lives. The moment-of-truth occasions are proliferating, and their requirements are shifting.

Some early examples show just how well an integrated approach can work. An early leader in shopper segmentation and retail integration, Best Buy has reported encouraging results from its multiyear commitment -- involving budgets, people and IT resources -- to better serve its core shoppers. Preliminary results show a 25% to 50% sales lift in segmented stores from 2004 to 2007. Beyond traditional data mining, Best Buy derives insights from shopping patterns and basket analyses -- both in store and online. The retailer uses these insights to improve assortment, merchandising and formats to meet the needs of its shopper segments. The next generation of shopper segmentation will enable near-real-time, in-store innovation, guided by online user preferences, behavior trending, increased interactivity and product customization, and secure personalization. The brick-and-mortar redesigns, powered by digital "fact-sets," have produced compelling and profitable dividends, all led by Best Buy's desire to better know and serve its core shoppers.

Not to be outdone, Circuit City has improved its multichannel retail offer in a variety of practical ways: Online shoppers can conduct research (including product reviews) and purchase online while opting to pick up the purchase in store within an hour of online payment. Once the shopper arrives in the store, trained associates offer relevant cross- and upsell options, such as accessories, warranties and services, pleasing the shopper and working to drive up loyalty and total basket ring. Brick-and-mortar shoppers, in turn, are enticed to visit the retailer online to redeem store coupons, and associates are rewarded for promoting multichannel -- store coupons are encoded to track users' origination points.

The takeaway for forward-looking marketers: You can increase strategic alignment with key customers by speeding up the "channel-less" evolution. Start by knowing your customers' priorities. Serve up only relevant products or services and improve the in-store experience (virtual or real-world) -- all while entertaining and educating shoppers or saving them time, money or both.

Winners in the next phase of e-commerce will delight consumers in every channel, tailoring a single brand experience to the channel chosen by consumers in any shopping moment or occasion.

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors

Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology Consulting

Capital One Customer Loyalty Program

Robert Rudy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:46:21 GMT

I saw this article recently in the Wall Street Journal. The topic is customer loyalty and building solid customer relationships.

My firm, Paradox Advisors, recently completed a strategy project for a leading global brand on how to cement strong relationships, across multiple products, with their customer base.

Even though the our client's brand is extremely strong, and customers actively seek out their products as part of their lifestyle, there remains significant upside growth potential.

Check out what Capital One is up to. It is similar to the ideas gleaned from the customer research we conducted...

------
(I've edited and shortened the original story from the WSJ)

In a novel move to lure bank deposits, Capital One Financial Corp. is introducing a money-market account...that offers rewards points based on customers' average monthly balances.
The Rewards Money Market account -- which the company says is among the first to offer miles based on balances held in savings accounts -- offers an annual yield of 4.65% and hands out one mile for every $20 of average monthly balance, including interest. Miles can be redeemed for airline miles, cash or merchandise. In exchange, customers earn a slightly lower rate than Capital One's standard High Yield Money Market account, which pays 5%.

While many financial institutions have built rewards programs around their credit and debit cards, some banks are looking at ways to build loyalty around their deposit accounts. Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank and National City Corp., for example, have introduced rewards programs in recent years that allow customers to accumulate points based on the number of accounts and services they sign up for and their transaction levels.

Traditionally, most banks have competed for customers' deposits by offering teaser interest rates or cash rewards. Now, some banks are looking at rewards programs to lure more of their customers' business. In July, Citibank expanded its ThankYou Network program to include clients of its Smith Barney business who use cards linked to their brokerage accounts. National City also recently expanded its rewards program to include mortgages and auto loans; customers can also earn points for automatic transfers into a savings account.

For banks, the programs are a way to develop "stickiness" and make it harder for customers to switch to a rival bank. Banks may also be using rewards to get customers to carry larger balances. "If your balance is maintained at higher levels, they're less likely to lose you as a customer," says Kelly Hlavinka, director of Colloquy, a loyalty-marketing firm in Milford, Ohio.

Lesson from this story: Give your customers a reason to do more business with you!

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors

Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology Consulting

capital one wall street journal customer loyalty Turbo Tagger

Former Fed Chair Greenspan to Keynote LIMRA 2007 Annual Meeting

Robert Rudy — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:54:28 GMT

Alan Greenspan, Ph.D.,
former chairman of the
U.S. Federal Reserve,
will keynote the 2007
LIMRA Annual Meeting,
which will host the leaders
of major life
insurance and financial
services companies
to Boston from
Oct. 28 to 30, 2007

You may get more out of this address than reading his book...

Alan Greenspan is an American economist and was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. Following his retirement as Fed chairman, he accepted an honorary (unpaid) position at HM Treasury in the United Kingdom.

Greenspan now works as a private advisor making speeches and providing consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. On May 16th 2007, Greenspan was hired as a special consultant by PIMCO and he will participate in Pimco’s quarterly economic forums and speak privately with the bond manager about Fed interest rate policy. He is also working on a memoir.

"LIMRA has established a record of presenting the most distinguished speakers at our annual meeting," said Bob Kerzner, president and CEO of LIMRA. "We're pleased and proud to be able to have Dr. Greenspan share his experience and wisdom of global economics with our audience."

In addition to Dr. Greenspan, the program will include a panel of CEOs discussing their strategies for results. The panel will feature Thomas M. Marra, president and CEO of The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.; Scott F. Powers, CEO, Old Mutual (USA) and Old Mutual Asset Management; and Stuart H. Reese, chairman, president and CEO, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.

The meeting, which will take place at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, typically draws more than 500 top executives from LIMRA member companies in the U.S., Canada and abroad.

CONTACT:
Howard S. Drescher, (860) 285-7875, hdrescher@limra.com
Catherine Theroux, (860) 285-7787, ctheroux@limra.com

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors
Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology

Management Consulting With A Unique Approach

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:39:47 GMT

At Paradox Advisors, we are a management consulting firm
with a unique approach.

I thought I would add something to the blog about the firm I manage, a somewhat unique model in the consulting business. This is from our company website at www.paradoxadvisors.com , which I invite you to check out.

"Instead of employing a permanent staff of consultants with a static skill set, we assemble a distinct team for each engagement. We draw from a deep network of experts and consultants, pre-qualified to meet our demanding standards.

Before you hire us, we work with you to agree on and specify the critical issues. Because each client has different needs, we design a tailored problem solving approach with practical plans for accomplishing your goals.

We have been in business since 2001 and serve firms in many industries; including Fortune 50 firms, mid-sized companies and start-up ventures. The industries we have served include:

insurance: property & casualty, life, reinsurance and brokerage
healthcare
banking and credit cards
retail
media services and advertising
information services
technology; software, services and e-commerce

We deliver equivalent or greater value than the 'name brand' consulting firms. Most of our people have worked at these great firms. Paradox Advisors, however, has low overhead, affordable rates, and is flexible in how we assemble resources to meet your needs. For example, we can:

provide interim leadership to help launch new lines of business
field a traditional consulting team of 2 to 8 consultants
create, manage or staff PMOs (program management offices) for large scale transformation initiatives or IT projects
conduct strategic or annual planning sessions for senior management teams, or
provide ongoing coaching for executives managing significant change initiatives

Core Values

We staff projects with best-in-class talent from multiple disciplines, providing clients with unbiased, objective, fact-based analysis.
We don’t recommend change for the sake of change, nor do we hesitate to recommend aggressive actions when appropriate. We tell it like it is.
We consider and leverage your organization’s strengths and work with your team to implement a practical plan with a high probability of success. It's all about execution and being practical. It's not about fancy charts and graphics.

Robert Rudy
Paradox Advisors
Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology

Harvard Essentials

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:45:27 GMT

The amount of free information and tools available today online is mind-boggling! And through my various research projects, I come across a lot of useful information that is worth sharing.

Hey, I went to Wharton, (which is consistently ranked higher than Harvard on many measures), but the HBS folks do publish lots of great material.

I hope that this blog becomes an information resource you will refer to on business management leadership and strategic planning.

Harvard's - 'Doing Business Effectively' outlines 10 strategies for success in business. It covers strategic planning, marketing plans, market research, competitor analysis, branding and much more.
It's a free e-book well worth reading.

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors
Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology

Pitfalls to Avoid When Planning Business Strategy

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:58:43 GMT

I have mixed feelings about what many companies call strategic planning, but creating an overall direction for your company or work group is necessary for success. People need to feel as if they are part of something bigger than themselves. At the same time, they need clear direction to know what "bigger thing" they are part of.

My mixed feelings result from the fact that strategic planning is rarely strategic and most frequently results in pages and pages of plans that sit unused in desk drawers. I have watched a number of clients fail at implementing their strategic plans over the years. I think many companies fail to implement their strategic plans for these reasons.

In a fast moving, fast changing industry, you can create an overall compass for your direction. You can put together operational plans. You can set goals. But things can change fast, so you can't 'do strategy' once per year. Some form of strategic thinking and assessment should be part of the monthly agenda. Can you really wait until next year to have a management discussion of what higher interest rates, market volatility or a recession could mean to your business?

I often have witnessed strategic planning meetings that felt a lot more like a prioritization of to-do lists. I met with participants a week later to find that their manager had agreed that the prioritization of objectives as was great. However, "all of the stuff" was important and had to get done. Thus, priorities were wiped out and each employee made baby steps on each of the too many objectives. And, when everything is a priority, nothing is really a priority.

When strategic planning sessions are facilitated by consulting companies, the consultants frequently recommend and request pages of research about competitors, markets, and current company performance metrics. While such a systematic approach is to be lauded, companies rarely have all of this data collected nor do they have the ability to utilize it effectively. Sometimes less in more. What are the 2 or 3 key factors or issues that we simply must address? It should not take a lot of consultant hours to surface these issues.

Many companies lack the ability to execute strategy. For whatever reason, they make great strategic plans and then fail to create the specific framework necessary for strategic planning follow-up. Without a follow-up framework and accountability system, execution of the strategic plan won't happen.

From Susan M. Heathfield,
Your Guide to Human Resources.

Business News - The Oxygen of Any Business For Growth

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:02:41 GMT

Business news....
without it, no business can compete today.

It has become the oxygen to the business system. You can’t seem to get enough of it.

A few years ago business news was ruled by the magazines, and one often subscribed to two or three professional journals, a daily business newspaper annd a magazine or two. The Internet changed all that.

Today, business news can be instant, tailored to your exact needs, and easily accessible wherever you are or whenever you need it.

The Internet:
With the power of search engines, especially the big three (Google, MSN, and Yahoo), you can discover information about your industry, keep abreast of developments in your industry and keep up with and ahead of your competition. Google alerts keeps you up date on who is saying what about you and your company. Set up an RSS Page and track all your favorite sites in one place.

The Professional Blog and Forums:
Both of these peer to peer services can be valuable sources of information. When the presidents of large companies are blogging and you can read their views on a daily basis, your own sources of news and business data are greatly enhanced.

The forum lets you ask questions and your peers can reply, and usually do. You can end up with a far wider point of view than you could have a few years ago by just reading the industry journals and Business Week or Forbes.

Live sites: like Reuters and Bloomberg and can bring you instant business data of a general type.

Other services are industry related, and video reports are available from industry experts.

Technology is changing everything - news is delivered faster and you don't want to caught driving in the slow lane!

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors
Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology

Managing A Sales Team

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:07:08 GMT

Managing a Sales Staff Means Understanding How Your Workers Communicate

Bob Rosner from ABC News did a great article on this topic.

"Recently, I learned an amazing trick that many women have turned into an art form. When asked a question they don't want to answer, women might pause, smile and ask a question. Most guys' egos immediately kick in and they answer the question and forget all about the unanswered question.

Salespeople, especially the really good ones, can be equally adept at controlling a conversation. That's why it's important as a manager of salespeople to get your own ego out of the way and really focus on what your people are saying. I've included some questions below to help you to do this.

Do you ask more than tell? I remember once asking someone on the street in China a question. He nodded his head and I kept thinking he understood what I was saying. After a few minutes of this I finally realized he was just being polite and didn't understand a word I was saying. That's why it's so important to ask challenging questions that force people to reconsider their assumptions and then to listen intently to the answers. It's also very important to always let them suggest solutions before you start offering your own.

Do you adapt to their style? I had a boss who never wanted to visit my work space; we always met in his office. Are you like that? It's important to make your coaching more about the workers. Find out how they learn the best and what topics they think are the most important to discuss. The more you make it about your people, the higher the odds that they'll start improving their performance.

Do you provide specific, fact-based and practical feedback? Specific, fact-based and practical -- what a concept. Many bosses talk in riddles! It is often really hard to sort out what they are really trying to say. That's why it's so important to make your feedback relevant to the issues that your sales people are struggling with.

Do you filter the demands on their time? Salespeople make money when they are selling. Yet so many companies drown them in meetings and "admistratriva" (don't look that up in the dictionary, I just made it up). Do everything you can do to focus their efforts on making you money and eliminate everything that doesn't.

Do you model the behavior you'd like to see from them? If you want a customer-focused sales team then model that behavior. Ask a lot of questions, focus on their concerns and be responsive to their needs. People learn by example, so set a good one.

Follow these tips and your sales force will answer your questions the right way -- with huge sales."

Robert Rudy www.paradoxadvisors.com

Strategic Marketing and Strategic Planning Sherpa

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:08:15 GMT

STRATEGY: With any business you need a strategic plan.

Maximum, sustainable, long-term growth is a result of planning, not accident. You want to build and sustain a competitive edge, set up an ongoing process for assessing markets and trends, and develop a vision for their business's future growth. Customers and Marketing are a big piece of that pie.

Marketing Sherpa provides practical case studies and know-how. MarketingSherpa is a research firm specializing in tracking what works in all aspects of marketing (and what does not.)

They are not an agency, consultancy or other vendor seeking your business. They are not even available for private research -- all of their research is published for the entire MarketingSherpa community to benefit from. Their goal -- to give marketers of the world the stats, inspiration, and instructions to improve their results.

Their site is a wealth of knowledge. Free reports, you may download and read as many of these resources as you'd like. You may also share these hotlinks with your colleagues and in blogs or email newsletters. You may also use the charts and data contained herein for your own articles and/or presentations with proper attribution.

Business-to-Business Marketing Resources
Landing Pages, Ecommerce & Web Design
How to Sell Online Subscriptions
Wisdom Report - Annual Reader-Written PDF
Latest MarketingSherpa Free-to-Read Stories
Sign up for free weekly email newsletters

They offer lots of useful inforamtion and case studies on strategic planning, leadership and management. MarketingSherpa is praised by The Economist, Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge Site, and Entrepreneur.com

Robert Rudy     Paradox Advisors
   Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology

Inspirational Leadership Quotes

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:25:20 GMT

A successful company always has a great leader!
Here are some inspirational quotes from great leaders-

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." --Lao Tzu

"The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority." --Ken Blanchard

"Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile." --Vince Lombardi

"Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and will power in the character." --Vince Lombardi

"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born -- that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born." --Warren G. Bennis

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership." --John Kenneth Galbraith

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." --John Quincy Adams

"The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization." --Fred Fiedler and Martin Chemers in Improving Leadership Effectiveness

"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." --Ralph Nader

"Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy." --Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control." --Tom Landry

"The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes." --Tony Blair

"Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish." --Sam Walton

"Leadership is not magnetic personality — that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not 'making friends and influencing people' -- that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations." --Peter F. Drucker

"Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning." --Warren G. Bennis

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership." --Dwight D. Eisenhower

"A good leader is not the person who does things right, but the person who finds the right things to do." --Anthony T. Dadovano

**********

And here's my contribution. I picked this up from a McKinsey Director during the Firm's orientation program for new consultants.

"You are a leader if people are willfully following you."

That one always stuck with me, because it puts the focus on behaving and communicating in such a way that people will listen and respond via action.

- Robert Rudy
www.paradoxadvisors.com

What is WIKINOMICS?

Robert Rudy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:26:37 GMT

What is "Wikinomics"?

In the last few years, traditional collaboration—in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center—has been superceded by collaborations on an astronomical scale.

Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics explains how to prosper in a world where new communications technologies are democratizing the creation of value.

Wikinomics shows how the masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing the human genome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding a cure for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, and even building motorcycles.

Millions of media buffs now use blogs, wikis, chat rooms, and personal broadcasting to add their voices to a vociferous stream of dialogue and debate called the “blogosphere.” Employees drive performance by collaborating with peers across organizational boundaries, creating what we call a “wiki workplace.” Customers become “prosumers” by co-creating goods and services rather than simply consuming the end product. Knowledge creation now happens in social networks, where people learn and teach each other. MASS COLLABORATION!

"No company today, no matter how large or how global, can innovate fast enough or big enough by itself. Collaboration – externally with consumers and customers, suppliers and business partners, and internally across business and organization boundaries – is critical. Wikinomics reveals the next historic step – the art and science of mass collaboration where companies open up to the world. It is an important book."

- A. G. Lafley, CEO, Procter & Gamble

   Robert Rudy
   Paradox Advisors
   Strategy, Operations Improvement and Technology

How Would You Get Back From Mars?

Robert Rudy — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:08:04 GMT

I stumbled upon a cool blog the other day called Atlantic Canada's Small Business Blog.

The blog focuses on issues faced by small businesses and entrepreneurs (marketing, HR, leadership, finance, operations), but they also talk about other topics - economics, trade, etc.

I want to share with you this article they did called "How would you get back from Mars?"

You may have read elsewhere or have a belief that the goal of an organization is to make money.
Even I have said so many times in this blog. But I read a question last night that made me pause and think about the real objective of the organization. The question was: “How would you make $ on Planet Mars?” The question was asked by Mariam Ispahani (CEM & Founder Saaze Crop) in LinkedIn.

I was about to immediately draft an answer. After all, the goal of an organization is to make money, right? Wrong! The goal of an organization is to create value. And us earthlings today measure value using a tool called money. At the end of the day, what is money? It is just a convenient tool for exchange of goods. In certain countries where the local currency is not convertible on both capital and current accounts (is there such a country?) walking in with the dollar is not going to buy you anything. It has no value there. The same argument holds with a business.

Businesses create value by providing what their customers need. Say you are traveling into a desert. The bottled water holds greater value to you than to someone else not venturing into the desert. And therein lies the answer to why businesses are successful. Successful businesses create value to their customers 24×7.

I must admit, I left out the complete question that Mariam asked: “the shuttle is leaving for the new Earthling settlement on Planet Mars and you have a ticket. Yippee! You only had enough money for a one way ticket, but you are adventurous. Assuming you want to return after many moons, how would you make the money to buy a ticket back to Planet Earth? No stowaways or strippers allowed.”

My answer would be to perform those activities that create value. One enterprise that immediately comes to mind is providing support services to new immigrants and helping them settle down. Moreover, depending on how fashionable it is to get to Mars, you may be able to recover the cost of your two way return flight by selling your existing one way ticket on Earth itself. Hey, remember it is all about value.

What would you do? How would you get back from Mars? Would you even want to come back to Earth?

Posted on July 7, 2007 by CA

Six Degrees of Seperation? How About Two??

Robert Rudy — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:06:21 GMT

Six degrees of separation is the hypothesis that anyone on Earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries.

According to Networlder Melissa Giovagnoli, it’s really a smaller world than that. After more than twenty years’ experience assisting thousands of entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals to decrease the time, effort, and cost it takes to create new business opportunities, she has developed Two Degrees, a winning system for working within this increasingly networked world.

In her upcoming book, "Two Degrees: How We Have Gone from Six Degrees to Two", Melissa explains, "The good news is that the system I created, Two Degrees, will provide the direction and motivation to create the connection they have lost with the onset of the Internet and its dramatic effect on the way we do business. Ever since the Six Degree experiment developed by mathematicians, Strogatz and Watz, revealed that, surprisingly, we are, on average, only six people away from anyone we would like to meet, networking advocates have been pursuing a path that would reduce that number. Today, the Internet proves that this number has decreased dramatically."

Today, SOCIAL NETWORKS are connecting people.
And in the business world, it’s all about LINKED IN.
According to LinkedIn,

"Your professional relationships are key to your professional success. Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have."

LinkedIn is an online network of experienced professionals from around the world,
representing 130 industries. -

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

Through your network you can:

Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
Be found for business opportunities
Search for great jobs
Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
Post and distribute job listings
Find high-quality passive candidates
Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know

"Since there are indeed great advantages to online networks — including promoting your professional strengths and personal interests as well as connecting with like-minded people — consider creating an account on a site like LinkedIn." ABC NEWS

The World Is Flat...And Getting Flatter

Robert Rudy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:41:32 GMT

OK, so the world isn't really flat! Well, not technically.
But the book was one of the most important books of this decade.

When it comes to sales and distribution, Thomas Friedman points out how the world has changed. What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone.

But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments--when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East--is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete--and win--not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well.

Read Amazons original interview with him following the publication of the first edition of The World Is Flat to learn why there's almost no one from Washington, D.C., listed in the index of a book about the global economy, and what his one-plank platform for president would be. (Hint: his bumper stickers would say, "Can You Hear Me Now?")

And now you can listen to Amazon's second interview, in which he talks about the updates he's made in "The World Is Flat 2.0," including his response to parents who said to him, "Great, Mr. Friedman, I'm glad you told us the world is flat. Now what do I tell my kids?"

    Robert Rudy     Paradox Advisors
   Strategy, Operations, Improvement and Technology

Organizational Leadership

Robert Rudy — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:03:00 GMT

Leadership Atlanta (Atlanta Leadership Development Foundation, Inc.) is the oldest continuously running training program of its type in the country. It was formed by a group of concerned citizens over three decades ago to address the growing need for a trained cadre of committed young leaders. The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce selected the first class in the summer of 1969 and in the spring of 1970, 46 leaders and future leaders of Atlanta graduated from the nine-month program. Among the class members were a future U.S. Senator, several corporate CEOs, judicial and civil rights leaders, and many committed business leaders and community volunteers.

It is the mission of Leadership Atlanta to build a better community for everyone in the Atlanta region by imparting to our members what makes Atlanta unique and by inspiring them to take on and exercise real leadership committed to serving the common good.

CORE VALUES include -

Appreciation and respect for the diversity of Atlanta's people.
Commitment to seeking common ground and pursuing common goals.

Commitment to seeking inclusion of all perspectives in community debate and decision making.

Affirmation that creating and maintaining community is a responsibility of every individual.

Openness and willingness to share, learn and seek solutions.
Recognition of the mutual interdependence of all communities in the Atlanta region.

Recognition that involvement by and collaboration among the business, government, nonprofit, and religious sectors are essential to the welfare of our community.

Over the years, many cities have now set up leadership development programs. Some of the big ones include Leadership New York, Chicago, Grand Rapids, MI., and Vancouver. A lot of businesses and organizations should look to a model like this to foster real world leadership skills (especially problem solving) and build collaborative relationships among teams.

Leading Organizational Change at Wharton

Robert Rudy — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:22:00 GMT

Change is vital to organizational growth and survival, but it is difficult to do well. While change initiatives take many forms, they share one thing in common: a dismal record of success. For example, researchers estimate that only about 20 to 50 percent of major corporate reengineering projects at Fortune 1000 companies have been successful. Mergers and acquisitions fail between 40 to 80 percent of the time, and the primary reason is “people issues.” Only an estimated 10 to 30 percent of companies successfully implement their strategic plans. How can you improve the odds for your own change initiatives?

Coming in December of 2007, Wharton, in Pennsylvania is offering Leading Organizational Change - a hands-on workshop that offers the best insights from research and practice focused on addressing your specific change initiatives. The program offers frameworks, models and perspectives on leading change that participants immediately apply to their own projects. You’ll understand the factors that trip up promising organizational transformations and the strategies that can make them more successful. You’ll gain a better grasp of the complex interpersonal and strategic issues involved to become a more effective change agent in your organization.

With its unmatched faculty and academic programs, Wharton is the most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world.

Waking up A Sleeping Company

Robert Rudy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:42:03 GMT

While doing some research on Bill George, I came across an elightening article he did a couple years ago.

"What do you do when you’re the new CEO and your employees tell you, "But that’s the way we’ve always done it"? An excerpt from Bill George’s book, Authentic Leadership.

"One of the greatest challenges for the values-centered culture is to produce top performance and succeed in the market against "win at any cost" competitors. Values are only one part of an organization's culture; the other half is its operating norms—the way in which day-to-day business is conducted. Practicing solid values does not guarantee results unless a passionate commitment to performance standards is incorporated into the organization's norms.

The question is, Do the organization's norms drive performance or do they undermine it?

The latter is what I found at Medtronic when I joined the company. The company's long history of success had led to a soft underbelly that manifested itself in a lack of discipline. The company was extremely values-centered, but its internal norms of consensus decision making, conflict avoidance, and lack of personal accountability all undermined the company's performance. For all its strengths, it was my impression that Medtronic's culture was too Minnesota Nice. I realized that these aspects of Medtronic's culture had to change if we were going to be an effective competitor and realize our vision of being the global leader in medical technology."

At HBSWK, he speaks in depth about the difficulties of transforming a culture of a company.
It's really an eye-opening article that remains timesless!

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors
Strategy, Operations, Improvement and Technology

Does Every Organization Need a Web 2.0 Strategy?

Robert Rudy — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:08:00 GMT

Remember when websites first came out,
and businesses were not sure if they needed one or not?

Boy, have times changed! We found it absolutely neccessary to have a website, a cell phone, a fax machine and at least one email account! Now you should have a blog and be joining social networking sites to promote your brand and reach new markets.

Dion Hinchcliffe did an article at ZD Net about 6 months which really caught my attention. It stated that Gartner’s 2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle report makes one thing clear; Web 2.0 will have significant business impact in the next half-decade and companies everywhere are having to consider directly how it affects them and their business strategies.

The bottom line; most organizations will need to start today; reformulating, and even outright reinventing, their ways of doing business.

This is not something to be taken lightly, causing many organizations to take their first steps carefully. Making a potentially generational change is not only hard work, but requires tedious trial and error, a significant amount of risk, and often a considerable investment in time and money. Of course, the promise is that the rewards are worth it and your business model will survive whatever dislocation the mass adoption of Web 2.0 business models could potentially cause.

Large companies of course will often struggle the most with their Web 2.0 strategy due to organizational inertia and the lag that comes from changing any very large system. Interestingly, it’s now hard to say whether it’ll be the companies with the most organizational discipline, or the least, that will be able to most effectively leverage Web 2.0; lack of excessive central control could potentially be an advantage in this newer way of doing things.

It's a whole new world we're living in at the moment! And Web 2.0 strategies allow us now to "pull" clients and customers to us instead of "pushing" our message out there, in hopes someone hears it.

Marketing Strategy is Business Strategy

Robert Rudy — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:47:00 GMT

ERIC KINTZ is known for his Marketing Excellence Blog.

As Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence for HP, he discusses key industry trends (such as the social web) and best practices in building the future Marketing function in the tech industry.

In a recent article he said, ""Marketing was once the growth engine of a company, creating great products and driving demand through mass advertising. But the dynamics shifted. Markets got commoditized. Traditional media modesl were disrupted. Marketing's ability to produce results began to decline and marketing became quickly perceived as nothing more than creative spending. CEOs turned to other functions such as supply chain, IT or sales to drive profitable growth and Marketing took a back seat in the business equation. I strongly believe that we are at a turning point where Marketing can re-conquer its role of growth architect, provided that it can prove its direct contribution to business results.

Many initiatives were already underway but we launched a major ROI initiative at HP 18months ago to bring together all these initiatives under one umbrella. ROI is for us less about a specific measurement or model and much more an operational discipline that ties our key marketing activities to business results.

Let me share some specific examples of the shifts we are undertaking:

-Customer loyalty: we have connected our net customer loyalty to our gross margin improvements. This allows us to understand the direct impact of customer loyalty improvements to HP's results and has greatly helped drive better experience.

- Brand performance: Brand is a significant contributor to shareholder value and price premiumness. We measure our brand value for our various business segments, benchmark it and compare it to our company value.

- Campaign performance: we are putting a lot of emphasis on deploying the right tools to trace our marketing campaigns, re-designing the lead management and campaign execution processes and standardizing metrics.This allows us to understand the direct contribution of marketing to the sales pipeline and to revenues.

- Portfolio ROMI: we have more recently started developing sophisticated marketing mix models that connect all marketing levers and investments to revenues and profits."

HP has several bloggers onstaff and there is lots of good industry reading there!

A Systems Approach to Business Strategy

Robert Rudy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:42:31 GMT

Strategic Navigation:

A Systems Approach to Business Strategy
by H. William Dettmer

There are many parallels between the business world and the military world: both must always be wary of the competition; both must be able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions; and if either falters the results could be devastating. Yet while military leaders have employed essentially the same strategies for thousands of years, business leaders often feel the need to try the latest fad in an effort to capture lightning in a bottle and lead the company to success. In Strategic Navigation: A Systems Approach to Business Strategy, best-selling author H. William Dettmer explains how sound, proven strategies used by great military leaders from Sun Tzu to Schwarzkopf can also be easily and effectively used in the business world.

Dettmer begins the book by introducing the conceptual framework of military strategy and maneuver warfare, which dates back over 2,300 years to the time of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He first explains how the time-tested principles of war planning and military execution can be readily applied to non-military uses, such as commercial business, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies, leading to considerable benefits in coherence and focus. Dettmer then introduces a logical, systematic tool set to help you translate the military strategy ‘template’ into action, which can then be applied to nearly any industry or business type. The system described by Dettmer is quick and easy to use, flexible enough to accommodate changes in the external environment, and supports the creativity of both strategists and executors.

H. William Dettmer has over 25 years of leadership and management experience in operations and logistics environments and is a successful manager of multimillion-dollar projects and contracting activities.

Robert Rudy Paradox Advisors
Strategy, Operations, Improvement and Technology