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Building a Direct-to-Consumer Strategy Without Alienating Your Distributors

Harvard Business Review

Companies increasingly use digital technologies to circumvent distributors and enter into direct relationships with their end-users. But they also risk alienating the longstanding partners that companies count on for their core business. As a result, many B2B companies remain stuck in a stalemate.

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Don't Let Customers Freak Out Over Price Hikes

Harvard Business Review

Three and a half months after announcing a price increase in July 2011, Netflix had lost 800,000 customers and its stock nosedived from $291 to $75. These episodes show how difficult it is for companies to mess with pricing. With the economy on the rebound, chances are that your company will consider a price increase this year.

Price 13
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Take Your Show on the Road

Harvard Business Review

The company already had a demo center outside London and a slick tradeshow setup to showcase how these work together in an effective system. A food company, for example, outfits vehicles with entire kitchens to demonstrate the most effective and creative ways to use its specialty food ingredients in food service operations.

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Top Line Growth? There's an App for That

Harvard Business Review

Smartphone sales in 2011 are estimated to reach 468 million units, a 57% increase over 2010. While the idea of reaching out to consumers via smartphone apps is clearly not new, companies have been stubbornly hesitant to embrace app technologies. In those days, incumbent companies were stuck in preweb ways of thinking.

Brand 12
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What Big Companies Can Learn from the Success of the Unicorns

Harvard Business Review

The term “unicorns,” coined, in 2013, by Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures , is commonly used to identify venture-backed private companies valued at $1 billion or more. A complete list of unicorns is published by The Wall Street Journal; as of February 2016, it includes a total of 146 companies. Financed by VC firms.