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 267

Industry Stage-Gate Organization Company 267

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2018

Our recent benchmarking of nearly 900 B2B companies underscores the importance of these tools. A B2B technology supplier used Microsoft Workplace Analytics and other digital tools to track the behaviors of its sales reps. Commercial operations groups tend to be early targets for cuts in a recession. Raise the game in pricing.

Team 10

Team Price B2B Tools 10

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 6, 2015

And consumers, already attuned to price and accustomed to discounts, are becoming used to free, fast shipping from e-tailers — so they need a good reason to visit a physical store. The answer is to play defense: use surgical-strike discounts to entice customers who are at risk of defecting due to a cheaper price.

Discount 8

Discount Retail Price B2C 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

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

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

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 13

B2B Chemicals Analysis B2C 13

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. It's a death spiral.

Innovation 15

Innovation B2B Price Trends 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

For example, consumer brands tend to have more of a social/emotional component to their jobs-to-be-done, while B2B products are heavier on functional needs. It is difficult and time-consuming to fulfill the social and emotional jobs, and consumer brand challengers are often tempted to replicate the incumbents’ strategies.

Marketing 8

Marketing B2B Levitt Disruptive Innovation 8

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

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

As a result, they may end up raising prices to consumers more than if they were one firm, with one profit center. Last month, just before the Wall Street Journal reported that CVS is looking to buy Aetna, CVS’s stock sank on news that Amazon had acquired licenses to operate as a pharmacy wholesaler in a dozen states.

Health Care 8

Health Care Proposal Insurance 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. Many successful matchmakers violate the rules of pricing that every beginning econ student learns.

Participative 8

Participative Business Model IPO B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 10, 2016

What about pricing? They then saw that their software, which could help data centers reduce operational costs, could be incorporated into the customer’s equipment just like word processing software is embedded into personal computers. Can we get our product to market through other channels, such as social media or advertising?

Marketing 8

Marketing Software B2B Technology 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. To that point, a well-run telesales operation will be super metrics-driven. I''ll discuss each one below. 1) Enterprise Sales.

Marketing 8

Marketing Productivity Products Learning Curve 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

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

MAY 30, 2016

Many firms operating brick and mortar stores are in trouble. B2B commerce, for example, didn’t move mainly online by 2005 as many had predicted in 2000, nor even by 2016, but that doesn’t mean it won’t do so over the next few decades. What’s the real story? A few seem to be making this work.

Retail 8

Retail Real Estate B2B CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

A study done by my former colleagues at Sapphire Ventures demonstrated that the median B2B software company that achieved meaningful scale in the market absorbed more than €100 million in operating losses on the path to significance. Their creditors priced capital for the new efforts along with the core.

Christensen 8

Christensen Finance Innovation B2B 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. This dashboard provided simple guidelines on flight capacity, corresponding pricing, and competitor options. The result?

Marketing 10

Marketing Guidelines B2C Analysis 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

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

APRIL 26, 2016

Compared to professions like engineering or business disciplines like Finance or Operations, the concept of a dedicated salesperson is relatively recent. Buyers now have easy-click access to information about products, prices, and other buyers’ opinions and usage experiences. Each group has its own operating procedures.

Education 8

Education Levitt Retail Training 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. Describe an incremental path towards success.

Software 8

Software Supply Chain B2C Education 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2017

Pricing and revenue modeling. PMs have to have a deep understanding of how the organization operates and must build social capital to influence the success of their product – from obtaining budget and staffing to securing a top engineer to work on their product. Feature prioritization and roadmap planning.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Core Competence Management 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. Unless you have achieved stability, you're in for some fun at compensation time.

Incentives 10

Incentives Sample Customer Loyalty Metrics 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

As the currency was crashing, he found himself facing a painful dilemma: either raise prices to recoup the losses and hit his annual target — set in U.S. But with the currency changing every day, how much of a price increase should he consider? Normally, MNCs raise prices in the emerging market, (e.g., Federal Reserve.

Price 8

Price Globalization Depreciation Marketing 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? How do we maximize our creativity as an industry while integrating data-driven approaches?

Media 8

Media Advertising Audience Technology 8

Strategy Driven

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

If you are operating a start-up, you may face problems with managing the cash flow of your business efficiently and may have to rely on working capital loans. Instead, they pay for the operational costs of a business and is a good indicator of the short-term health of the business. Conclusion.

Working Capital 11

Working Capital Credit Scoring Long-term Short-term 11

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. Description.

CRM 8

CRM B2B Price Budgeting 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

Miles Anthony Smith

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

TopRank Marketing TopRank Marketing has been doing innovative and impactful work with interactive content and B2B influencers for huge brands like SAP, Dell, LinkedIn, 3M, and Oracle for over 18 years. A deep understanding of ABM in B2B is its super-power. If you want your B2B content to be great, invite your community to participate.

Marketing 105

Marketing Content Audience Brand 105

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. more competitive prices, more localized products) and improve their risk management and operational efficiency.

Depreciation 8

Depreciation Contingency Plans Policies Marketing 8