Tag Archives: strategy

Strategy in a nutshell

Strategy isn’t complex. It’s simple. Strategy is the limited number of things that you are going to focus on in the future. Essentially, it is the answer to, “What is it that matters?” or “What are we placing our bets on to be successful?” This example, from an interview with Nicholas Thompson, the Chief Executive…More

The Four Horsemen of the Corporate Apocalypse

The signs of future failure were always thereThey always areThose on the front line could see the horses in the distanceThey tried to tell you, but you ignored their warningsYou dismissed the sound until it was a rumble of thunder, but then it was too late. The Horsemen have arrived. 1) Complacency – you ignore…More

HMV summary of posts on Interacter

A post on the Interacter blog last week, proved incredibly timely in criticising HMVs Blue Cross marketing campaign. Three days later, HMV went into administration. The article itself is excellent, but the comments (of which I have contributed several) provide some interesting reflection points of the wider implications of HMVs failure. Go to the original…More

Learning lessons from HMV

The collapse of the High Street continues as HMV enters administration this week with the potential loss of over 4000 jobs. Unfortunately, this was a failure that was absolutely predictable.  There were no shortage of signs – from the first profit warning in early 2011 ago, subsequent profit warnings, and finally the drop in sales to below £1bn…More

The Emperors New Clothes are still being made

Can I humbly give Product Managers a quick piece of advice? STOP LYING! Stop lying about what your product can do for me if you know it doesn’t do it. Just tell me the truth. Instead of telling me it can do something it can’t, or something it can do, but does badly, instead pick…More

How to win against Apple, think small not big

How do you beat Apple? Product Manager Test A quick test for would-be Product Managers faced with developing a product to beat Apple: Insert the missing word: ‘If we made our product _______ we could beat Apple‘. faster cheaper smaller bigger lighter … or any other feature you can pick … ‘If only we could…More

Apple’s iPhone Business Alone Is Now Bigger Than All Of Microsoft

If you are Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft and reading this headline you can: … dismiss competitors, you can challenge analysts who predict tough times ahead. … invest in new products at the same pace you always did [typically a 3 year product cycle]. … follow what has worked in the past confident that…More

Learning from RIM – good operations cannot fix a lack of vision.

The debacle at RIM continues. The list of problems over the last couple of years pretty much ticks every box possible on what could go wrong in a technology company: – Service failures, botched new product releases, uninspiring product roadmaps, delays to critical updates … And the corresponding impact of these: – Falling sales, falling profits, missed…More

Slaying the sacred cows of cloud technology, one by one

Take any new technology and you will have two groups of passionately arguing about it: 1) The evangelists, who espouse the transformational value of the technology, who see its potential to enable new business models, new ways of working and great savings (there is always a cost element) 2) The pragmatists, who whilst they see…More