Archives tagged: communication
The May 16 issue of Harvard Business School’s “Working Knowledge” carried an intriguing article entitled “What Loyalty? High-End Customers are First to Flee.” The article goes on to discuss the work of Prof. Francis X. Frie and doctoral student Ryan W. Buell. The premise of the research simple states that customers that businesses believe to be their best and most loyal are likely to be the first to cast you aside when presented with a challenger of a firm’s heretofore superior service. It’s a real kick in the groin to those companies who believe they have invested heavily in high levels of service for their best customers.
More And You Think Your Employees Aren’t Powerful? …It Only Takes One!
Like comparing apples and oranges? No, apples and employees! The employee that isn’t trained to exhibit excellent customer service skills or takes it upon him or herself to alienate customers is like the proverbial apple that “spoils the barrel”, creating an atmosphere that spawns negativity and steals from your bottom line. It only takes one employee to send your customers running away screaming to your nearest competitor, even in the world of electronic interactions.
In the first week of June, the Business Marketing Association (BMA) held its annual B2B marketing conference in Chicago. The show over-delivered on its “Unleash” theme with a tidal wave of information about the changing nature of strategic marketing, business models, content and data strategy. Incoming BMA chairperson Al Maag, Chief Communications Officer of Avnet, had this to say about outgoing chairperson Gary Slack, “The annual conference is the jewel in our thought leadership BMA crown thanks to Gary Slack.
More Most pricing strategists would agree that having a low price is not a competitive advantage in and of itself. In fact, thinking that low prices are always a good strategy for competition is deeply misguided. However, at times, targeting low prices can lead to a strategic focus which delivers tremendous results. For example, Ikea, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines all have low prices and profitably take market share. In this article, we will examine the flaws of assuming low prices is a good competitive strategy, then demonstrate how one firm, Southwest Airlines, redefined the product through target pricing to win the market profitably.
More Executives are living in a time of strong market disruptions that are driving costs up across industries. The recession already squeezed the potential for productivity gains to make up for the lost margins. Now, for many executives selling tangible goods, it is time to push the price lever up. How should they raise prices? Read for the two keys to raising prices successfully.
More The concepts associated with creating sustainable processes for monitoring market-based pricing is fairly intuitive. In past articles, I have shared a bit about how to get started and where to focus your energies. Because it is imperative for your company’s survival, this article addresses the hardest part of creating a sustainable pricing system; adapting pricing concepts to your way of doing business.
More In my research, what I learned was that despite the fact that most companies are committed to the concept of differentiation, at any given moment they are also intensely aware of what their competitors are doing, and it is this competitive vigilance that ultimately pushed them down a path of conformity.” Youngme Moon, HBS Professor and author of “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd”
More In October of 2010, Intel Corp. took an unexpected move by granting Achronix Semiconductor Corp. access to its most advanced foundry to produce field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips. Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp. currently dominate the FPGA industry. How serious of a threat is Intel’s move to the historic industry cohorts? More specifically, will this move harm industry profits as competition heats up? And, how should executives and investors react?
More Imagine, your executive just read an article that said she can expect at least a 1% improvement in her bottom line profit if she introduces a pricing initiative. Now, she wants to know what steps you will follow to create a new pricing function with the goals of implementing value based pricing and stopping margin leakage. What resources do you need to be successful and where do you focus first?
More The beginning of a new decade is the best possible benchmark. It is the perfect time to evaluate current business practices, set…
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