article thumbnail

What Data-Obsessed Marketers Don’t Understand

Harvard Business Review

Data can play a leading role in developing strategy and bringing precision to execution, but it does nothing — absolutely nothing — to stir motivation and create the desire that makes cash registers ring. You may be thinking that data will magically turn bush-league marketing into a winning “Moneyball” performance.

article thumbnail

When and Why to Part Ways with a Customer

Harvard Business Review

Develop a chart that displays both sets of traits side-by-side. Your employees may be operating under the “the customer is king” cliché, and may be trying endlessly to please every whim. REI cancelled its lifetime return policy due to customers blatantly purchasing products with the intention of returning them.

Reis 8
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

What It Might Mean If We All Work From Home

The Horizons Tracker

operating at around 30-40% of normal levels. They have been joined by companies like Ford, REI and JPMorgan Chase, all of whom have announced long-term plans for remote working. Data from the London Underground suggests that passenger numbers are 30% of normal levels, with other forms of public transport across the U.K.

Reis 82
article thumbnail

How to Improve the Engagement and Retention of Young Hourly Workers

Harvard Business Review

Offer professional-development opportunities. She breaks down the operational and human resource decisions that make this possible in her HBR article and book The Good Jobs Strategy. HMSHost will be launching workshops on engagement across the entire company.

Survey 8
article thumbnail

Lean Doesn’t Always Create the Best Products

Harvard Business Review

As a practitioner of a design-led form of product development, and in my own research and writing about an empathetic approach to product design, I’m overtly critical of the Lean manifesto. Lean proposes a “test and measure” process of product development. But what is lost? Leverage A/B testing to compare variations.

article thumbnail

Traditional Strategy Is Dead. Welcome to the #SocialEra

Harvard Business Review

The companies thriving today are operating by a new set of rules — Social Era rules. Companies like REI, Kickstarter, Kiva, Twitter, Starbucks — they get it. Regular readers of HBR will recognize parts of the thesis in this post; the idea has developed with your input, as these ideas were first shared in a five-part series.

article thumbnail

7 Steps to Deliver Better Customer Experiences

Harvard Business Review

We were supposed to be coming up with ideas for improving the company’s customer experiences, but the head of operations could not think of a single new customer service idea to explore. And the development leader failed to identify any new ideas for store layout or building features. I was stunned.

Brand 8