Skip Prichard

JUNE 22, 2020

Companies with a healthy culture gain a positive reputation, not only among employees, but also with customers and the market. The culture required to drive a strategy of innovation is different from the culture required to develop efficiency or operational excellence. The right culture attracts and retains better talent.

How To 107

How To Middle Management Reputation Short-term 107

LDRLB

APRIL 13, 2020

Consider a few examples: “The company’s primary objective is to maximize long-term shareholder value while adhering to the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates and at all times observing the highest ethical standard.” Is it market share of products? Is it a plurality—just the largest market share?

Mission Statement 78

Mission Statement Motivation Long-term Customer Loyalty 78

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Big data has become the X factor of modern marketing, the hero of every marketer’s story. You may be thinking that data will magically turn bush-league marketing into a winning “Moneyball” performance. Data, alone, isn’t what makes marketing move the needle for business.

Marketing 9

Marketing Reis Brand Retail 9

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 24, 2012

Companies in all varieties of B2B markets have moved beyond selling products and services to offering complete "solutions" to their customers. Alstom keeps trains ready to run each morning for railroad operators rather than just selling the rolling stock to them. Traditional research techniques (surveys, focus groups etc.)

B2B 14

B2B Business Objectives Focus Group Marketing 14

Strategy Driven

JUNE 6, 2014

I support cause related marketing and have advised many corporations on setting up such programs. I say it is not, and I’m an expert on cause-related marketing. He was simply rationalizing a corporate marketing initiative. Do not run your “foundation” out of a corporate marketing department. Conduct focus groups.

Franchising 75

Franchising Marketing Strategy Strategic Planning 75

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 12, 2018

Leaders today increasingly turn to big data and advanced analytics in hopes of solving their most pressing problems, whether it’s a drop-off of repeat customers, a shift in consumption patterns, or an attempt to reach new markets. This is where big data and analytics can really shine, in applications such as predictive maintenance.

Team 13

Team Analysis Focus Group Influence 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2012

The marketing budget to cement that perception was nearly $100 million, but the opening weekend not only missed financial expectations, it flat-lined. Disney admitted its studio would have an operating loss of $80-$120 million, making the film arguably the biggest flop of all time.

Film 16

Film Franchising Budgeting Audience 16

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2012

The marketing budget to cement that perception was nearly $100 million, but the opening weekend not only missed financial expectations, it flat-lined. Disney admitted its studio would have an operating loss of $80-$120 million, making the film arguably the biggest flop of all time.

Film 16

Film Franchising Budgeting Audience 16

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2013

Focus groups are also used to understand how engaging the games are, whether they need to be redesigned or fine-tuned, and whether the opportunity needs to be shaped before it becomes practical. These teams have disciplined processes to get the technology to market, generally with a one- to two-year product horizon.

Technology 8

Technology Innovation Kaizen Chief Executive Officer 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 20, 2018

Because the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. The mantra of “ first-mover advantage ,” the idea that winners are the ones who are the first entrants in their markets, became the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley.

IPO 8

IPO First-mover Advantage Business Model Agility 8

Strategy Driven

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Marketing 101 principles still apply. Yes, set up a “focus group” of employees to serve as community leaders who will shepherd your company into the social networking world, but don’t put all of the power in their hands. Rolling out a community and just expecting people to join as friends or followers is a flawed philosophy.

Media 50

Media Follow-up Software Newsletter 50

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 10, 2011

A recent study by Aon Hewitt , for example, found that companies with high levels of engagement outperformed the stock market in 2010. And these companies build closed-loop learning into their daily operations so that they're constantly improving. Employee engagement and financial performance are connected.

Tactics 15

Tactics Customer Loyalty Survey Loyalty 15

HR Digest

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Establish Benchmarks Make it a point to define industry and market benchmarks to compare your organization’s compensation practices. If our equitable compensation program guide is to be trusted, you need to identify relevant external benchmarks to understand prevailing salary ranges for similar roles in the market.

System 52

System How To Benchmarking Diversity 52

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. What values drove them? What made them proud?

Management 11

Management IPO Diversity Long-term 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 31, 2018

Sixteen women were interviewed and seven others participated in a focus group. They were employed in midlevel to upper-midlevel management positions in strategy, finance, marketing, legal, operations, and technology functions. These women started small, but started somewhere, and then increased the complexity over time.

Management 14

Management Tacit Knowledge Diversity Leadership Pipeline 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 19, 2011

Inner city neighborhoods where obesity runs highest are jammed with fast food outlets, and markets with fresh produce are rare. In focus groups throughout the state, mothers routinely believed that they were doing their best for their kids. The barriers were substantial. Fast food is cheap, tasty and convenient.

Succession 13

Succession Long-term Short-term Budgeting 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2017

Erica Jackson, chief marketing officer of the Mendoza Marathon Corporation, had risen early to watch people line up to register for next year’s event and expected an enthusiastic crowd. Alan Kurtz, MMC’s chief operating officer, was standing off to the side, and she moved to join him, but a racer intercepted her.

Case Study 8

Case Study Brand Proposal Chief Operating Officer 8

Strategy Driven

JUNE 7, 2013

It occupied one counter at 2-J’s Hamburgers, an established Austin restaurant, owned and operated by Ralph Moreland. I come in after the wrong consultants have given bad advice, after knee-jerk reactions to changing business climates had taken tolls on existing market players. ’ I commissioned focus groups.

Franchising 65

Franchising Budgeting Pryor Consultative 65

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2014

Sephora, the cosmetics retailer, has been widely recognized as a leader in integrating its digital marketing efforts into its overall strategy. As one sign of that, Sephora has a single executive who serves as both chief marketing officer and chief digital officer. The impact that had on the operations and culture was significant.

Brand 11

Brand CTO Marketing Retail 11

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 17, 2014

However, we’ve discovered the need for an approach that falls somewhere between the two—to explore the customer value proposition and market appeal of a concept in the more turbulent and distracting context of the live market, but without full investment in a pilot. We call this approach “live prototyping.”.

Retail 10

Retail Focus Group Brand Marketing 10

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 16, 2016

Better-quality feedback from customers and stakeholders, often because you’re asking them to actually buy something, rather than just spout opinions in a focus group. Marketing folks feel that could damage the brand, and the general counsel’s office frets about legal risks. A faster cycle time for developing ideas.

Company 8

Company Airlines Ries Survey 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 31, 2012

Their marketing departments. Marketing promotions don't resonate and can't be tied to measurable results. In doing research for my book , I found that companies who are attracting buyers in today's hyper-connected world are developing new approaches and competencies that focus on one thing: customers. Here's how.

CEO 8

CEO Airlines Marketing Software 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 17, 2015

Marketers and innovation specialists can immerse themselves in the sights, sounds, and emotions of consumers’ daily lives, surfacing opportunities to make their products and services more emotionally resonant and durable.

Document 8

Document Marketing Learning-by-Doing Travel 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 28, 2015

According to our report The Power of the Purse: Engaging Women Decision Makers for Healthy Outcomes , which was based on a multi-market survey of 9,218 respondents in the U.S., Women account for a significant chunk of the market. Fifty-nine percent of women in our multi-market sample are making health care decisions for others.

Health Care 8

Health Care Industry First-mover Advantage Market Segmentation 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

Maybe there’s an email chain through which new parents in the marketing department swap out gently used baby gear, and maybe Mary over in finance has a reputation as an “on top of it” mom — and ends up mentoring and informally coaching a disproportionate number of colleagues as a result.

Organization 11

Organization How To Seminar Follow-up 11

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2018

But the CMO Council reports that “only 14 percent of marketers say that customer centricity is a hallmark of their companies, and only 11 percent believe their customers would agree with that characterization.” Others lack the processes and operational capabilities to target them with personalized communications and experiences.

Short-term 13

Short-term Learning-by-Doing Participative Human Resources 13

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 17, 2016

There is something marketing managers seem to forget about the internet: it was made for people, not for companies and brands. Eavesdropping on consumers’ social-media chatter allows marketers to economically and regularly peer inside people’s lives as they are being lived, without introducing biases through direct interaction.

Media 8

Media Sample Brand Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 26, 2013

The party has been selling pretty much the same product for more than three decades now, while market conditions have changed. It's like the flailing companies in Ted Levitt's classic HBR article " Marketing Myopia " that err by thinking their job is to sell a product rather than satisfy a customer need. Lafley and Roger L.

Brand 8

Brand Productivity Products P&L 8