In the CEO Afterlife

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

Jacobs Suchard Directors expected me to run their North American operation as an entrepreneurial enterprise, and as long as the returns were favorable, they assumed I was doing just that. In 2013, Zappos continues to amaze under this culturally insightful leader. I wasn’t surprised in the least. Jeff Bezos thought so.

Long-term 100

Long-term Download CEO Objective 100

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2014

One way I do this is to use what I call the “-er brand” filter. Er brands rely on other products or brands to explain their own. Hyundai is an -er brand. Its brand appeal is based on the assertion, “We’re just as good as Lexus but cheap-er.” Great brands never settle for being an -er brand.

Brand 10

Brand IPO Marketing Strategy Airlines 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

But creating “decision simplicity” presents only part of the brand simplicity picture. Sephora, Carrefour, and Amazon are examples of successful simple brands, despite providing a vast range of options to their customers. So how can a brand achieve this form of simplicity? Finally, Rotary turned their attention to their website.

Brand 11

Brand Survey Globalization Short-term 11

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 8, 2015

One group of high-growth consumer brands, in particular, has been harnessing the power of the “brand network effect,” by leveraging technology to build large, passionate online communities around their products. And as these communities grow, their branding becomes exponentially more powerful. ’s $59 billion).

Brand 8

Brand Apparel Software Content 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2015

Killing off brands is not a popular or pleasant thought, but we should consider it more often than we do. Some executives may be reluctant to admit – perhaps for sentimental or political reasons — that their brand is sucking out more value from the company than it creates. Profitability isn’t a useful metric.

Brand 8

Brand Merchandising Retail Real Estate 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 30, 2015

A new research report from the Society of Digital Agencies finds that in the past year there has been a dramatic spike in the number of companies who no longer work with outside marketing agencies — 27 percent, up from 13 percent in the previous year. This continues a trend The Association of National Advertisers first reported in 2013.

Marketing 8

Marketing Advertising Trends Brand 8

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 23, 2013

Customer centricity: It’s been proven that companies that prioritize their customers see greater business results and continually bring more innovative products to the market. By tuning in to customer needs, a company is able to define the market in ways they could not have identified had they only looked inward. All rights reserved.

Organization 58

Organization Open-book Innovation Technology 58

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

But creating “decision simplicity” presents only part of the brand simplicity picture. Sephora, Carrefour, and Amazon are examples of successful simple brands, despite providing a vast range of options to their customers. So how can a brand achieve this form of simplicity? Finally, Rotary turned their attention to their website.

Brand 8

Brand Survey Globalization Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2014

Let’s say you’re working in a new market, far away from headquarters, and you need to get approval for an initiative that is somewhat outside the company’s current strategy. As we spoke to them, Mansfield and his team shared five insights on how to work with senior management to get strategy-stretching innovations to market: 1.

Innovation 8

Innovation Marketing Disruptive Innovation Project 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

With a business model of at-cost hardware and software up-selling, it recently raised its 2013 sales targets from 15 million smartphones to 20 million, and is now gazing abroad. Barra has his work cut out for him: Chinese companies have had mixed success so far in competing with top Western brands on several fronts at once.

Marketing 8

Marketing B2B Levitt Disruptive Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

And the same applies to the affected workers: The tight labor market means there are opportunities for those who go through retraining. For example, the Lordstown, Ohio, factory that makes the Chevy Cruze is running one shift a day, down from three a few years ago, and last year produced 180,000 vehicles, down from 248,000 in 2013.

Restructuring 11

Restructuring Fixed Costs Consensus Operations 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 28, 2018

They had to work in sequence, meaning they had to streamline the operation first — before they could launch their new growth effort. The underlying trouble had been McDonald’s working from an inside-out perspective: what fit with its current infrastructure and operations. The firm’s leaders, convinced the U.S.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Decentralization Resistance 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 14, 2018

Alternatively, the company can operate in stealth mode by targeting customer segments that have been poorly served or ignored by traditional distributors. Starting in 2011, Mercedes chose to develop direct distribution capabilities for electric bicycle sales under its Smart brand. market for personal computers. Minimize Pain.

Strategy 10

Strategy B2B Insurance Business Model 10

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

In 1933, General Motors President and CEO Alfred Sloan established the automobile industry’s first full-time consumer research department under the direction of Henry “Buck” Weaver, a pioneer in market-based decision making. We’ve come a long way. Today, Weaver’s mass-mailing tactics seem quaintly out of date.

Media 8

Media Automotive Globalization Active Listening 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 6, 2014

If round after round of profit warnings was not enough – group operating profits fell 20% between 2011 and 2013 and are likely to fall another 30% in 2014 — the company recently announced it had overstated its first-half profit by about $400 million. and spends it in international markets. Aldi UK sales grew from $6.3

Retail 11

Retail Merchandising Discount Price 11

Harvard Business Review

MAY 10, 2018

From targeted online advertising to more precise recommendation engines, consumer markets are bursting with innovation around machine learning and advanced analytics. Data-Driven Marketing. The science of storytelling and brand performance. Marcus Winther/Getty Images. Insight Center. Sponsored by Google.

B2B 8

B2B Chemicals Venture Funding Engineering 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 16, 2016

Data contributes not only to brand equity, but to what constitutes product and service delivery in globally connected and hyper-competitive markets. Between 2013 and 2015 cyber-crime costs quadrupled, with the reported incidence rate growing exponentially. Today most organizations are data-driven to one degree or another.

Intangible Assets 8

Intangible Assets Intellectual Capital Corporate Accountability Activity Based Costing 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 19, 2014

Take the example of Harvey Norman , an Australia-based household-goods retailer that operates under various brands and has stores in several countries. The company’s 2013 annual report contained the usual statements on income, changes in equity, and cash flows — standard stuff. Whole Foods Market in the U.S.

Report 10

Report Franchising Analysis Guidelines 10

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Marketing is in the midst of an ROI revolution. The arrival of advanced analytics and plentiful data have allowed marketers to demonstrate return on investment with a degree of precision that’s never been possible before. To date, however, the reality of marketing analytics has fallen short of the promise.

CFO 8

CFO Short-term Long-term Benchmarking 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

DECEMBER 13, 2013

Technology, marketing, retail, HVAC, construction, and manufacturing pros. billion in 2013 – up about 15% from the year before, according to our 2013 Marijuana Business Factbook. Companies are beginning to expand beyond their home markets and into other states. And more are joining every day. The list goes on.

Industry 10

Industry Retail Banking Brand 10

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 31, 2015

While consumers are rightfully worried that their personal information may be compromised, shareholders and companies’ management have a wider set of concerns, including loss of intellectual property, operational disruption, decreased customer trust, tarnished brand, and loss of investor commitment. The stock price declined 0.3%

Price 8

Price Long-term Banking Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 22, 2014

America’s largest insurer, Allstate, announced plans to invest $1 billion in its India operations. In June 2013, Dallas-based Mary Kay exited from India after six years and over $20 million invested. At the same time Amway and L’Oreal thrived in the same market and personal care sales boomed across most of India.

Venture Capitalist 11

Venture Capitalist Price Marketing Learning-by-Doing 11

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

By year’s end, the seven biggest emerging markets were larger than the G7 , in purchasing power parity terms. Far from Silicon Valley, Shanghai, or Singapore, a German company, Rocket Internet, has been busy launching e-commerce start-ups across a wide range of emerging and frontier markets.

Constraint 8

Constraint Marketing Innovation Uncertainty 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 5, 2016

But peruse some of the recent headlines about Iran , and you might wonder whether the market’s potential was overstated. However, despite a weakened economy, political tensions, market uncertainty, and the lingering effects of sanctions, Iran remains an important opportunity for multinationals in emerging markets.

Tourism 8

Tourism Banking Due Diligence Hotels 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 21, 2016

Today’s executives are dealing with a complex and unprecedented brew of social, environmental, market, and technological trends. This can disrupt a firm’s ability to operate on schedule and budget. “Stranded assets” are investments that become obsolete due to regulatory, environmental, or market constraints.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Price Loyalty Efficiency 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 21, 2015

Walmart recently lost $20 billion in market cap in one day, in part because its leadership admitted it needs to invest more into its e-commerce operations. In 2013, Target even told the Securities and Exchange Commission that “digital sales represented an immaterial amount…of total sales.”

Airlines 8

Airlines Retail Loyalty Price 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 16, 2016

Strategic alignment, for us, means that all elements of a business — including the market strategy and the way the company itself is organized — are arranged in such a way as to best support the fulfillment of its long-term purpose. But corporate leaders today seem to agree that strategic alignment is high on the list.

Banking 14

Banking Strategy Film Operations 14

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

Twitter reported a loss of $79 million before its IPO, yet it commanded a valuation of $24 billion on its IPO date in 2013. In the 2016 book The End of Accounting , NYU Stern Professor Baruch Lev claimed that over the last 100 years or so, financial reports have become less useful in capital market decisions.

Company 8

Company Intangible Assets Depreciation IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2014

Instead, the last few years have seen a proliferation of C-suite titles that include a component of marketing. This diversity reflects not only a deepening understanding of the connection between growth and customer satisfaction, but a much greater awareness of what marketing can do to help forge that bond.

P&L 10

P&L Banking Marketing Call Center 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2012

This week, Microsoft is announcing an unusual initiative that it hopes will change how the company operates: an internal fee on carbon. As Microsoft takes on more of its customers' operations through cloud-based services, reliance on the utility grid creates real operational and price risk (from outages and volatile prices).

Price 13

Price P&L White Paper Energy 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2016

In a previous piece I discussed why some AR apps are destined to be forgotten as gimmicks, and what mistakes marketers should avoid when trying to deploy them. The application was one of the first marketing campaigns that allowed interaction with a digital model in real time. Aside from complex technological advances (e.g.,

Tourism 9

Tourism Technology Content Fashion 9

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 21, 2013

In April 2013, over 1,100 workers died in Bangladesh when a garment factory complex called Rana Plaza collapsed. Are workers in that country or other emerging markets any safer today? That’s the discussion I moderated on November 18, 2013, at the Boston Global Forum. Such collective action is essential.

Retail 8

Retail Globalization Short-term Price 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 23, 2013

At the New Media Expo, I also interviewed Nick Harris, head of digital marketing for Benjamin Moore. But even anecdotally, you probably have some good operating theories. The "best" platforms will be different for every person or brand. But in 2013, think hard about how you can cut back, so you can focus on what matters.

Media 10

Media First-mover Advantage Early Adopters ROI 10

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, the ride-sharing giant, proudly declared on September 10 that “very few brands become verbs” The same week Upwork, a platform for hiring freelancers, filed for an IPO, as did Fiverr , which boasts that it offers a “freelance services marketplace for the lean entrepreneur.”

Quinn 10

Quinn Entrepreneur IPO Survey 10

Harvard Business Review

JULY 24, 2017

Major organizational changes, covering everything from recruiting and branding to regulatory approvals and marketing, happened in rapid succession, with a hard deadline of 12 months to get it all done for the IPO — and 18 months from the IPO until our full separation from GE. Of course, the journey isn’t over.

Management 10

Management IPO Diversity Long-term 10

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 22, 2015

GE has many products that fit this mold, which the company has bundled under its ecomagination brand for 10 years. In a 2013 advertisement in The Washington Post, HP claimed that if you measured countries by power consumption in kilowatts, the fifth largest after China, the U.S., Sustainability Data Operations'

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Engineering Energy Transportation 8