Posts by: David Dalka
Adrienne Hartman, Director of Ecommerce & Customer Insights at J.J. Keller & Associates talked about how B2B Ecommerce cannot be solved only by software alone. (I agree with her) She also talked about using Google Manufacturing Center. She encourages you to ask, “How well can buyers use your site?” It is clear that her words come from an employee of an organization with a strong culture.
More One of the most interesting booth visits I had was with Starfrit. Founder Jacques Gatien started selling kitchen gadgets at trade fairs in 1965. Over the past several decades, they’ve created many new categories. They showed me The Rock, a frying pan with a unique non-stick surface using what they call RockTec. It comes with a generous 10-year warranty.
More I have noticed one car company breaking the rules of engagement at the Chicago Auto Show the past two years. Kia Motors America, Inc. has public relations people on hand like every car company at the show. They also had product mangement exectutives like Vice President, Product Planning Orth Hedrick and Manager, Long Range Strategy Steve Kosowski onsite. They stayed onsite for both press days – interacting with people and taking product feedback.
More New Washing Machine Marketplace Innovations and Warranties Driving Value Proposition Differentiation
Recent purchases have lasted less time than that in most cases. I wondered aloud whether using tools like Six Sigma for efficiency over and over have reached an inflection point where they destroy quality. Once you have perfected a product and focus on taking out costs, there is an opportunity cost. That opportunity cost usually results in a loss of quality.
More Traditional hard drive manufacturers are currently going through a paradigm shift—one where new solid-state hard drives, known as SSD, are taking market share and slowly eliminating traditional hard drives. SSD hard drives of one terabyte or more are slowly becoming affordable to the masses. What is the big deal you ask? Read onward.
More How do publishers successfully market to librarians? David Dalka explores this issue from direct research and interactions at the 2013 American Library Association Conference.
More Business guru Harvey Mackay stated, “The Japanese have a very simple way of describing the typical American marketing plan: READY? FIRE! AIM.” Sadly little has changed in American business. This is a major reason why the American economy is in constant crisis, and obsolete marketing departments built on late twentieth-century dogma now resemble the spending habits of Communist central planning: disconnected from reality, economically inefficient and lacking accountability to the right things.
More Business strategist Gary Hamel discusses his new book, “What Matters Now.”
More Over the past few years, I discover more and more senior level executives who do not have a full grasp of primary business strategy drivers that drive revenue and profits. I’ve met with Chief Executive Officers (CEO) who just dismissed their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and asked “Why did you remove this person and what change in business activities do you seek in your next CMO?” Amazingly most can’t answer this basic question with a well thought out and rational answer. Part of the problem starts here.
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