Harvard Business Review

MARCH 17, 2016

Winning with low prices is not merely a game of math in which you stay one notch below the competition; it is far more a game of culture and attitude. It takes a special kind of company, from the CEO on down, to make a low-price position sustainable and profitable. The groundbreaking price war in the U.S. Don’t fight them.

Price 8

Price Airlines Govindarajan Advertising 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2018

Our recent benchmarking of nearly 900 B2B companies underscores the importance of these tools. Digital tools can also open new go-to-market approaches. They rely on backward-looking sales data and broad-brush reports to calculate overall market size and gauge how many reps they need and where to assign them. billion vs. $1.2

Team 10

Team Price B2B Tools 10

Leading Blog

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

That’s a shame because the aviation industry as a whole still continues to be an industry model for how to operate with extremely high reliability despite having a highly fragmented set of organizational entities. The biggest challenge for companies when it comes to operational excellence is siloed behavior. Recall how the U.S.

Industry 271

Industry Stage-Gate Organization Company 271

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 10, 2016

Unfortunately, many tech startups get stuck at this stage because they can’t quite figure out a scalable way to go to market. Figuring out a go-to-market approach is no trivial exercise — it separates the companies that will be successful and sustainable from those that won’t. What about pricing?

Marketing 8

Marketing Software B2B Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

The “jobs-to-be-done” theory articulates the gap between how producers view and market a product and how customers actually use it. In the words of Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt, “ People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. Hence the focus on non-consumers. Xiaomi’s Challenge.

Marketing 8

Marketing B2B Levitt Disruptive Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Nowhere else in the executive suite of a typical corporation are two functions as closely intertwined as sales and marketing. 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.

Marketing 10

Marketing Guidelines B2C Analysis 10

Harvard Business Review

JULY 30, 2013

In every start-up, finding initial product-market fit is a magical moment. But once you achieve initial product-market fit and are down the Sales Learning Curve (PDF), suddenly you are faced with a new challenge: how do I scale up the sales efforts? I''ll discuss each one below. 1) Enterprise Sales. in quota for a rep (i.e., $1m

Marketing 8

Marketing Productivity Products Learning Curve 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 14, 2018

As a result, many B2B companies remain stuck in a stalemate. Alternatively, the company can operate in stealth mode by targeting customer segments that have been poorly served or ignored by traditional distributors. Microsoft was able to do so largely due to its monopolization of the desktop operating system market.

Strategy 9

Strategy B2B Insurance Business Model 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2017

In doing research on multinational operations in the Middle East and Africa, we’ve learned that companies are well aware of how President Trump’s foreign and trade policies could affect their businesses there. unilaterally pulls out of the Iran nuclear deal), building contingency plans, and diversifying their portfolio of markets.

Depreciation 8

Depreciation Contingency Plans Policies Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2015

“They advised us to retain that as a strong part of who we are,” said Paul Choquette, a fifth-generation Gilbane who runs the Mid-Atlantic operation. billion, operated in an average of 15 countries, and had an average of 12,000 employees. “There’s a feel to a family business that clients in our space like.

B2B 8

B2B Press Release Construction Brand 8

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 14

B2B Chemicals Analysis B2C 14

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

On Friday, Microsoft slashed the price of Windows 8.1 by 70% for select B2B customers. The magnitude of this price cut was surprising; all that was missing was a pitchman screaming “If you call now, we’ll throw in a free Tae Bo workout DVD — a $29.95 The downside of Microsoft’s price cut is that it devalues Windows 8.1

Discount 8

Discount Airlines Price Licensing 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 10, 2012

To be clear, all Orbitz users can see the same hotels if they opt to view hotels by price, and Orbitz does not charge different prices for the same room based on what kind of computer you use. Still, as pricing strategies go, this one is an attention grabber. Retailers often set different prices in different locations.

Retail 13

Retail Hotels Price B2B 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 17, 2013

If you want to really understand a firm’s strategy—whether it’s a start up or Fortune 500 firm–you need only two documents: the compensation plan and the pricing plan. When I am meeting a company for the first time and I ask for the pricing and compensation plan upfront, I often get blank stares. Let me offer a few examples.

Planning 8

Planning Incentives Document Price 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2011

Two factors are conspiring to heighten concerns over rapid commoditization: price pressures from still budget-conscious customers, and market compression from more competitors (and more cut-throat competitors). These equate to a race to the bottom on price, and an inability to differentiate except on price.

Innovation 15

Innovation B2B Price Trends 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

In all these cases, the antitrust authorities argued that further combinations among firms in the same market would hurt consumers. When two separate firms with market power occupy successive positions in an industry value chain, both will try to earn a profit margin over their costs. Evaluating vertical mergers is trickier.

Health Care 8

Health Care Proposal Insurance B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

In B2B contexts, for example, rep performance in similar territories often varies by 300% between top and bottom quintiles, and in retail stores selling productivity typically varies by a factor of three to four. There’s a lot of competition, which keeps a lid on prices and increases customer acquisition costs.

CRM 8

CRM B2B Price Budgeting 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2015

For example, American services marketplace Thumbtack leverages close to 1,000 home-based contractors in the Philippines to help with business operations. Traditionally, business process outsourcing was associated with high-volume, low-price work. Rocket operates some of the largest e-commerce platforms in emerging markets.

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Technology B2B GDP 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 4, 2014

for 10+ years; deployment of design as an integrated function across the entire enterprise; evidence that design investments and influence are increasing; clear reporting structure and operating model for design; experienced design executives at the helm directing design activities; and tangible senior leadership-level commitment for design.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Fashion B2B Hedge 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2017

When Caesars Entertainment, a gaming company, reorganized operations in 2011, the senior team not only developed a database on the performance and the potential of the company’s top 2,000 managers but also analyzed the ability of the top 150 to take on new and different jobs.

Human Capital 15

Human Capital Management Company ROCE 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

Over time, their products and services became better and better, and those innovative entrants moved up market, slowly increasing performance. If an organization could isolate a unit and focus it exclusively on the disruptive market, it had an opportunity to succeed. It wasn’t easy to do, but it was a good strategy.

Christensen 8

Christensen Finance Innovation B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 11, 2016

They operate platforms that make it easy and efficient for participants to connect and exchange value. Westfield Malls operates shopping malls that help retailers and shoppers to get together. Then there are all the ad-supported media that troll for eyeballs so they can sell them to marketers.

Participative 8

Participative Business Model IPO B2B 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. Even when the boom in MBA programs coincided with the rise of Marketing as a discipline, Sales was treated like a stepchild at best. Each group has its own operating procedures.

Education 8

Education Levitt Retail Training 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2017

Performing market assessments. Pricing and revenue modeling. Managing tight deadlines, revenue targets, market demands, prioritization conflicts, and resource constraints all at once is not for the faint of heart. So, what should you consider if you’re thinking of pursuing a PM role? Running design sprints.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Core Competence Management 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2016

Many firms operating brick and mortar stores are in trouble. Creative retailers are using the new technologies to innovate just about everything stores do from managing inventory, to marketing, to getting paid. Of course, the shuttered stores, depressed execs, and tanking stocks suggest otherwise. What’s the real story?

Retail 8

Retail Real Estate B2B CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

Of course, anyone who really knows the history of platforms may recall the many that aspired to make gobs of money but never did and quickly died (think of the many B2B exchanges that never made it to the other side of dot-com bust). Or unicorns like Uber that, if cap tables mean anything, someday will.

IPO 8

IPO Succession Technology Software 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

In most larger companies, you'll need to generate roughly 200+ responses per operating unit per period. Bain research shows that leading companies can achieve 60% or better response rates in B2B companies and 30% or more in most B2C situations. One direct marketer learned this the hard way. Organized learning.

Incentives 10

Incentives Sample Customer Loyalty Metrics 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 6, 2013

At the time of the Geek Squad acquisition, it was considered foolish by many; a decade later, the $3 million purchase price has been repaid hundreds of times over. You must move from B2C to B2B, or vice versa. You must slash the price of your product or service by 50%. Look for unorthodox opportunities.

Disruptive Innovation 8

Disruptive Innovation Hotels B2C Price 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

For a long time, there has been a clear split between business software (often called Enterprise or B2B ), and consumer software (B2C, or simply “products”). That split is increasingly irrelevant. Ground the design in emotional research. Describe an incremental path towards success.

Software 8

Software Supply Chain B2C Education 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 5, 2015

These changes are driven by seismic shifts in consumer behavior and an explosion of both consumer- and B2B-facing technologies. When and how do we shift our businesses from legacy operating models to ones that better reflect the future? Marketing strategies. Distribution strategies. Creativity and Data.

Media 8

Media Advertising Audience Technology 8