Sunday, December 09, 2007

UNCTAD

The Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices (www.unctad.org)

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Value Pricing and the Economic Perspective


The traditional economic approach to product pricing is driven by a small handful of factors, as shown. http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=597028

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Pareto Optimal

Pareto optimal: no other allocation can make one better off without making the other worse off.
Given a set of alternative allocations of, say, goods or income for a set of individuals, a movement from one allocation to another that can make at least one individual better off without making any other individual worse off is called a Pareto improvement. An allocation is Pareto efficient or Pareto optimal when no further Pareto improvements can be made.

Coca-Cola's New Vending Machine (A): Pricing to Capture Value, or Not?

Chairman and CEO M. Douglas Ivester stumbles when he tells a Brazilian newsmagazine about a new Coke vending machine that can automatically raise prices in hot weather. Reaction around the world is swift and negative.


Variable-Price Coke Machine Being Tested
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804E7D91038F93BA15753C1A96F958260&n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Coca-Cola%20Company

Is a Cold Soda Worth More on a Hot Day?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01E0D9173BF932A05753C1A96F958260&n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Coca-Cola%20Company

Coke's New Pricing
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E6D9143BF932A35752C1A96F958260&n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Coca-Cola%20Company

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Sunday, August 19, 2007

How to Brand Private Labels

Price it right: If the price is too low, consumers suspect that corners have been cut. Generally, thesweet spot of pricing is 10% to 20% below national brands

Pay attention to packaging: Make packagingmore distinctive than national brands to set the product apart on the retail shelf.

http://fusionbrand.blogs.com/fusionbrand/2004/05/how_to_brand_pr.html

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance

7 basic rules for setting and delivering strategy:
Keep it simple, make it concrete.
Avoid long, drawn-out descriptions of lofty goals and instead stick to clear language describing what your company will and won’t do.
Debate assumptions, not forecasts.
Create cross-functional teams drawn from strategy, marketing, and finance to ensure the assumptions underlying your long-term plans reflect both the real economics of your company’s markets and its actual performance relative to competitors.
Use a rigorous analytic framework.
Ensure that the dialogue between the corporate center and the business units about market trends and assumptions is conducted within a rigorous framework, such as that of “profit pools.”
Discuss resource deployments early.
Create more realistic forecasts and more executable plans by discussing up front the level and timing of critical deployments.
Clearly identify priorities.
Prioritize tactics so that employees have a clear sense of where to direct their efforts.
Continuously monitor performance.
Track resource deployment and results against plan, using continuous feedback to reset assumptions and reallocate resources.
Reward and develop execution capabilities.
Motivate and develop staff.
Following these rules strictly can help narrow the strategy-to-performance gap.
Turning-Great-Strategy.pdf

Friday, July 13, 2007

The Strategy Process: Making the Link with People and Operations



The strategy process defines where a business wants to go, and the people process defines who will get it there. The operating plan provides the path for those people, breaking long-term output into short-term targets.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Where the Performance Goes [Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance]


This chart shows the average performance loss implied by the importance ratings that managers in our survey gave to specific breakdowns in the planning and execution process.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Strategies for Two-Sided Markets

The crucial strategy question is, Which side should you subsidize, and for how long?

Users will pay more for access to a larger network, so margins improve as user bases grow. In traditional businesses, growth beyond some point usually leads to diminishing returns: Acquiring new customers becomes harder as fewer people, not more, find the firm's value proposition appealing.

{ Networked Markets / Side 1 / Side 2 / Platform Providers }

Cross-side network effects: If the platform provider can attract enough subsidy-side users, money-side users will pay handsomely to reach them.

Same-side network effects: snowballing pattern, when drawing users to one side helps attract even more users to the same side.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Charting the strategy

Drawing a strategy canvas - 1. strategic profile of industry, 2. strategic profile of current/potential competition (which factors to invest in strategically), 3. company's strategic profile (the value curve)

Focus - setting the agenda;
Divergence - look for uniqueness; value curves of innovators' strategies always stand apart; create new factors;
Compelling tag line - strong and authentic; (Southwest Airlines: "The speed of the plane at the price of the car - whenever you need it.")


4 steps of visualizing strategy - visual awakening, visual exploration, visual strategy fair, and visual communication

Value innovation is about offering unprecedented value, not technology or competencies, and not the same as being first to market -- achieved through a combination of eliminating features, creating features, and reducing and raising features to levels unprecedented in their industries. A radically different value curve is difficult for incumbents to imitate, and the volume advantages that come with value innovation make imitation costly. 3 platforms on which value innovation can take place: product, service, and delivery.

Pioneers - value innovations. Migrators - value improvements. Settlers - me-too products.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Marketing: Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines

operational excellence - superb/lean/efficient operations, reasonable quality at competitive prices with minimal inconvenience (FedEx, American Airlines, Wal-Mart, Dell Computer)

customer intimacy - segmenting and targeting markets precisely, tailoring to match specific demands of those niches, so to build long term customer loyalty. The business processes stress flexibility and responsiveness. (Nordstrom, Home Depot, Staples, Ciba-Geigy, Kraft, Frito-Lay)

product leadership - strong in innovations, brand marketing and commercialize ideas quickly, relentlessly pursue new solutions to solved problems, lifetime value concepts, products/services that consistently enhance customer's use, thereby making rival's goods obsolete (Johnson & Johnson, Nike)

... pick one value discipline and vigoriously pursue it while meeting industry standards in the other two ...

Sunday, June 10, 2007

MBA: Marketing Strategy/Policy + Strategic Management

Information Technology Management was completed. Marketing Strategy/Policy and Strategic Management are now started. Also, enrolling into Business Simulation for the summer semester.

Strategic Issue - Each level of strategy must be consistent with - and therefore influenced and constrained by - higher levels within the hierarchy. The 3 major levels of strategy in most large, multiproduct organizations are (1) corporate strategy, (2) business-level strategy, and (3) functional strategiess focused on a particular product-market entry.

A strategy is a fundamental pattern of present and planned objectives, resource deployments, and interactions of an organization with markets, competitors, and other environmental factors.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Training: Leadership Through People Skills

Training: Leadership Through People Skills
http://www.q4solutions.com/dimen.htm
Dimensional® Model of Behavior™

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Monday, February 12, 2007

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Milestone day




Jan 11, 2007 - Milestone day