Harvard Business Review

JULY 31, 2012

While B2C companies have become adept at mining the petabytes of transactional and other purchasing data that consumers generate as they interact online, B2B sales organizations have only recently begun to use big data to inform overall strategy and tailor sales pitches for specific customers in real time. Yet the payoff is huge.

B2B 13

B2B Chemicals Analysis B2C 13

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 20, 2018

For one thing, in an era when trust in traditional sources has eroded — in government, media, and in companies and the marketing they employ — word-of-mouth from trusted peers wields greater clout than ever. First, I just said, “hey, we’re going to be a ‘delight’ company!”

B2C 14

B2C Energy Marketing Efficiency 14

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 21, 2013

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.

B2B 8

B2B B2C Education Travel 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2016

Compared to professions like engineering or business disciplines like Finance or Operations, the concept of a dedicated salesperson is relatively recent. ” As Walter Friedman documents in Birth of a Salesman , sales wasn’t seen as a function that required specialized training or education until well into the 20 th century.

Education 8

Education Levitt Retail Training 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 30, 2013

Across our portfolio and in my own entrepreneurial experience, I have seen three main sales models work successfully in scaling B2B sales: 1) Enterprise; 2) Telephone; 3) Developer-driven. 80-90% software products vs. 40-50% advertising products) and company maturity (e.g., I''ll discuss each one below. 1) Enterprise Sales.

Marketing 8

Marketing Productivity Products Learning Curve 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2011

Many companies now have senior officers in charge of customer experience. The executives' role is to define the attributes of the customer experience in partnership with their operational colleagues, organize the customer-satisfaction-measurement process against those attributes, and encourage remedial action wherever warranted.

B2B 13

B2B Consensus Productivity Products 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 23, 2015

To some, ball bearings are boring, even though these small steel spheres are what keep everything from factory machines and wind turbines as well as cars, trucks, planes, and trains moving smoothly and safely. Such challenges, he says, require industrial companies to take a fresh approach to strategy. That lag poses dangers.

Industry 8

Industry System Business Model B2C 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 16, 2014

In many countries, business policies vary a great deal among individual cities, which is where companies actually operate. During the last decade, founders in the city have built a number of highly successful companies like Twitter and Dropbox. are placed into local companies. Unfortunately, this makes them incomplete.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Bureaucracy Real Estate B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 16, 2014

In many countries, business policies vary a great deal among individual cities, which is where companies actually operate. During the last decade, founders in the city have built a number of highly successful companies like Twitter and Dropbox. are placed into local companies. Unfortunately, this makes them incomplete.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Bureaucracy Real Estate B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2017

Creativity in marketing requires working with customers right from the start to weave their experiences with your efforts to expand your company’s reach. Brocade’s Net Promoter Score went from 50 (already a best in class score) to 62 (one of the highest B2B scores on record) within 18 months. The results?

Creativity 14

Creativity Marketing Agility Budgeting 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 4, 2016

And on the rare occasions when you do land an interview, you stumble over questions about what you’d bring to the hiring company and why you’re the perfect fit. But the bullet becomes much more impressive because he placed it in the larger context of what his company’s overall challenges were. 75M to more than $14.5M

Brand 8

Brand Press Release Marketing B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 17, 2016

It takes a special kind of company, from the CEO on down, to make a low-price position sustainable and profitable. The skills and traits to pull that off — such as cost-consciousness, relentless efficiency, and customer-driven design — must be anchored in the company and its culture from the very beginning.

Price 8

Price Airlines Govindarajan Advertising 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Yet for all the shared responsibility, the marketing and sales relationship has often been a contentious and lopsided one, with sales dominating in B2B sectors while marketing leads in B2C ones. The company shifted resources to its most lucrative markets, where two-thirds of the opportunity lay.

Marketing 11

Marketing Guidelines B2C Analysis 11

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2017

As an aspiring PM, there are three primary considerations when evaluating the role: Core Competencies , Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and Company Fit. The best PMs I have worked with have mastered the core competencies, have a high EQ, and work for the right company for them. Company Fit. Not necessarily.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Core Competence Management 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 6, 2013

Second, there has been little motivation for Chinese firms to develop branding capability, in part because most top companies have not been in a competitive context in which branding was important. In addition, most of the very large firms in China are content to compete as B2B players where the value of branding is not obvious.

Brand 8

Brand Globalization Brand Management Long-term 8

N2Growth Blog

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

I hear a lot of noise about the tough economy, and revenue being down for many companies. I hear complaint upon complaint that companies just don’t have money to spend, and that nobody is buying. It’s because you don’t get it…It’s not about you, your company, your products or your services.

Blog 373

Blog Ryan B2C Brand 373

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 4, 2017

It’s common for leaders of sales teams to focus almost exclusively on short-term tactics and current operations while failing to think and act in a way that supports the longer-term needs of their businesses — and it’s hard to fault them. Splunk , a San Francisco-based B2B software firm, is a case in point.

Long-term 8

Long-term Short-term Team Succession 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 4, 2017

It’s common for leaders of sales teams to focus almost exclusively on short-term tactics and current operations while failing to think and act in a way that supports the longer-term needs of their businesses — and it’s hard to fault them. Splunk , a San Francisco-based B2B software firm, is a case in point.

Long-term 8

Long-term Short-term Team Succession 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2014

Digital channels have upended the well-trod ruts of sales and marketing organizations — already, nearly a third of all B2B purchases are done digitally. Our analysis of 73 B2B technology companies shows that across sectors, the top 25% of companies achieve more than twice as much return on sales investment compared to the bottom 25%.

Marketing 11

Marketing ROI B2B Team 11

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2017

strong opposition to the Iran nuclear deal; a ban on travelers from several Muslim-majority countries), many companies are still looking to invest in the region. Many companies are assessing their exposure to specific policy decisions (e.g., Since Trump was elected, Dunkin Donuts has opened its first outlet in South Africa; U.S.

Depreciation 9

Depreciation Contingency Plans Policies Marketing 9