Connecting with Connectors, An Excellent Networking Article

Great article on networking!  It doesn’t have to be difficult – you just have to focus your efforts on the right people: the “Connectors”.

Connecting with Connectors, Networking Article – Inc. Article.

Investing in Emerging Markets: Is the Time Right for You or Your Business?

Ben Steverman’s article in BusinessWeek provides sage advice as you consider your investment opportunities for 2010+.  It has implications for both personal financial investments, but also provides insights into where some growth opportunities are as you consider potential global expansion.

Steverman writes that ” a way to invest in emerging markets is to focus on companies that are growing rapidly, have sustainable business models, and are industry leaders Seek profit from strong economies in emerging markets, where demographics and government policies are driving impressive growth. That’s advice barely dented by the recession and financial crisis.”  As he further points out, however, is that “these markets are particularly subject to currency swings, overheating, and unexpected shocks”, so enter with your eyes wide open.

From a global expansion perspective, this article’s emphasis on Brazil and India is not a surprise.  The middle class is growing in these markets, and the IT infrastructure is growing.  Both of these elements should make these markets more attractive to company’s looking to realize incremental growth through global expansion. 

Fast growing new markets are sure to be attractive to firms seeking growth; however, the “devil is in the details”, so be sure to gain a thorough understanding of the operating requirements before entering.  Get outside advice if you’re not familiar with a market and invest in market research to understand what drives purchase behavior.

http://bit.ly/6khxv4

Posted via web from FASTInnovators

Now Is the Time to Jump-Start Your New Product Development Plan

What's Your Plan for Growth?

Did your company decrease its spending on new product development over the past 2 years?  A lot of companies did, understandably, as they looked to preserve earnings in light of deep declines in top-line revenue.  However, as we begin emerging out of the recesson, if you’re not re-charging your innovation plans you’re already behind the curve.  Consider the following:

• Best-in-class companies strive for 30 – 50% of revenue in a fiscal year come from products launched in the past 3 years.  This is a personal observation from clients and corporations I’ve worked for.
• A Deloitte study indicated that 70% of products will become obsolete in 5 years.  This is especially true for companies who compete on a global basis, where buying patterns change more rapidly as information flows freely across borders.
• Consumer spending is expected to increase in 2010+, and most economists are projecting positive GDP growth in the US.  As unemployment stabilizes and improves, consumers will likely feel more secure financially and will spend more than they did in 2009.

New product development should be an ongoing, iterative process for companies.  However, if you’ve taken your eye off the horizon over the past few months, here are some broad questions for jump-starting your strategic planning process:

• Where does your company want to be in 3 – 5 years?  Sure, this is so cliche, but a major economic downturn calls for this question to be seriously reconsidered. Ask yourself: 
  • has the competitive environment changed over the past 18 months? 
  • Have your customers’ buying habits changed due to the recession?
  • Have substitute products emerged?
  • Are your customers buying your products, or your competitors’ products, through different channels?
  • Is your business model still sustainable?
• Is it time to enter new global markets?  A lot has changed over the past 18 months; most importantly, the emerging markets continued to grow despite the global recession.  Are there now potential customers for you in Brazil, Russia, China, India or the eastern European countries?
• Are there short-term incremental improvements that can be made to improve your products or services?  These “low-hanging fruit” can yield huge dividends.  Think about some of the incremental improvements that have yielded some of the most popular products of the last decade:
  • the iPod and iPhone:  MP3 players and cell phones existed long before Apple launched these products.  Apple found ways of making these products more relevant to how people live and use these products. 
  • Wii:  We all know that video games were popular before the Wii was introduced.  Again, like Apple, Nintendo found ways of delivering a more realistic experience based on emerging technologies and a deep understanding of latent customer needs.
• Innovation isn’t just about new products; service and supply chain innovation are overlooked ways of differentiating your company and making your offerings more relevant to your customers.  For example, think of how the internet has become an even greater part of peoples’ lives since the recession started.  Has this created new ways for you to interact with your customers?  Perhaps new, affordable customer service technologies have emerged online that can now be inexpensively implemented.  Although they’ve been around for several years, think of how Awebber and Gotomeeting have made email marketing and webinars extremely easy to use and inexpensive.

With 2010 just around the corner, now is the time to be asking these questions and to be re-evaluating your company’s new product development plans.  Best wishes and good luck!

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Starbucks Via — Why I Think It Was a Bad Idea

http://bit.ly/8M4fyF

A provocative perspective on Starbucks Via written by Scott Anthony of Harvard Business Review. There are parts of his argument that I agree with; others that I don’t. In the end I think that Via is an example of great idea – poor execution.

His comment that “in classic disruptive fashion, Via delighted me by substantially out-performing the other options available” is a key insight here. I agree that Via is a very good alternative to other instant coffee products on the market; and, it’s even better than a lot of regular brewed products. However, the issue here isn’t whether this is a good product:  it’s a matter of whether it was right for Starbucks to be selling Via in traditional Starbucks stores. Via is not consistent with Starbucks’ brand essence, which is rooted in a premium coffee house “experience”, like the Italian coffee house experience that inspired the creation of Starbucks.

I think that a better alternative for Starbucks would be to license Via to a leading instant-coffee brand, like Nescafe or Nespresso. Or, perhaps Via could be sold only through mass channels, grocery, etc. In this fashion, the company could still realize incremental revenue from a new segment without damaging the Starbucks coffee house experience.

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Innovate on Purpose: Conditions that can create an innovation culture

by Jeffrey Phillips, via innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “creating a culture of innovation”, which is what a lot of firms suggest they want to do.  Of course this is a very lofty goal.  Changing a corporate culture doesn’t happen easily, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.  Yet clearly one of the most significant barriers to innovation is the entrenched culture of effectiveness and efficiency, of risk-avoidance and following rather than leading.So, that led me to think about when teams and groups within an organization can be innovative, and what the conditions were when that happened.  We regularly lead teams on trend spotting and scenario planning exercises that create some really radical future scenarios, with little resistance, and often lead ideation and brainstorming programs that achieve a large number of disruptive or radical ideas.  These small programs demonstrate that innovation can happen in any organization under certain conditions.  Let’s first look at what makes these small programs effective.

We find that we can be most effective with these discovery and idea generation programs when we set very clear expectations about our goals and prepare the team carefully for the work, setting out specific rules and expectations.  Typically when we go into the work, we’ll close the door and tell the team that anything that happens in the room is fair game, and open for discussion, and we aren’t bound by the “normal” rules.  This helps get the team out of the “day to day” thinking and encourage their creative thinking.  They know that no one will be allowed to ridicule an idea or submit challenges that will block the consideration of an idea.  For those few moments or days, we have created a “micro-climate” for innovation, probably akin to a hothouse in the wintertime.

So, if we can create some assorted micro-climates where teams can spot opportunities and emerging trends, and effectively generate ideas, can we build on the “micro-climate” concept to create more areas where conditions are ripe for innovation?  Using the flower analogy, can we move the ideas from one hothouse to another, gradually exposing the ideas to the elements and improving the chances for survival, while we try to change the conditions of the organization at large (change the cultural attitudes to innovation)?

I’d like to suggest the first step may be to create a number of “micro-climates” – safe locations to generate, develop and evaluate ideas that exist specifically to give ideas the necessary environments to grow.  Some firms use a designated space for innovation.  Perhaps the best way to change the culture is to start small, with several micro-climates that establish conditions for innovation and allow the process to prove its worth.

Eventually the idea needs to be exposed to the conditions, and planted where it will bear fruit. That is, it must make a transition from an interesting idea to a new product or service, and that means it must work its way through the product or service development process.  There are two considerations here:  either the existing product or service development process must be adjusted to accept and manage new, possibly more disruptive and fragile concepts, or new product and service development models must be developed for more radical ideas.  To carry the plant analogy further, any farmer worth his salt will cover plants in the field that are susceptible to a killing frost or unexpected conditions.  So, too, must an organization provide more cover and care for a radical idea as it moves through a traditional product development process.

The point here is that too many times we talk about “changing the culture” and immediately reject the concept, since it is such a Herculean task.  Perhaps what we should do is establish small teams and locations where the conditions are beneficial to innovation – small micro-climates where ideas can succeed, and string them together.  Once we’ve demonstrated success, we won’t have to worry about changing the culture, because slowly the organization will recognize success and begin to adapt to the best concepts that the conditions in the micro-climates offer them.

Here are my thoughts….

First of all, this was very well written by Jeffrey Phillips. In particular, I think he “nailed it” when he stated the need to creat “micro-climates where teams can spot opportunities and emerging trends…”

By doing this, perhaps you can overcome internal, cultural obstacles to innovation — such as silos and the ever-prevalent “not how we do it here” syndrome — that seem to be so prevalent. This is especially true in companies that have experienced success in the past. Creating a safe environment, free from politics, is key to getting cross-functional teams to work across silos/borders.

An equally important element to this, however, is the selection of the right team members. These need to be people who are willing to think creatively, without judgement, regardless of functional area expertise. Finding the right team members, especially for an international organization, can be tricky. But, it’s critical for developing an innovation culture.

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Service Innovation: A Low-Cost Eye Care Model for Beating Blindness in Emerging Markets

via youtube.com

A novel approach by Mr. Ravilla, which is allowing him to attack needless blindness and vision impairment in India. It’s great to see an innovative approach to service delivery produce such a positive benefit to society. What’s more remarkable is that this service was delivered at a profit, realizing 39% operating earnings (EBITDA).

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Time’s person of the year: The Chinese Worker?

via holykaw.alltop.com

Great concept proposed by Time Magazine;  all the more reason to have a “China Strategy” discussion as part of your 3 – 5 year planning horizon. I especially think this is true if you’re in the consumer space. With an emerging middle class the size of the US population, this is a group that can’t be ignored. I’m not proposing that you enter China tomorrow; rather, this should at least be an issue/opportunity to explore during your strategic planning process. Questions to consider:
1. Are your products or services relevant to the Chinese consumer?
2. Does your company’s mission statement require that China be part of your strategic plan?
3. Are there existing products or channels of distribution already in China for your product/service?
4. Have your competitors entered the Chinese market? If so, have they been successful? Any lessons learned?

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Obama Presses Giant Banks to Make More Loans

via nytimes.com

By now you’ve seen this all over the news. My question is: will this actually make a difference? In the end, the government cannot force non-TARP receiving banks to lend money to anyone as long as they operate within the law. However, I’m hopeful that the improving economic conditions will make banks feel more comfortable with lending to small businesses.

Based on my own personal experience over the past year, your best bet is to approach your local bank — not one of the large national/international banks. Many local banks limited their exposure ( or did not participate at all ) to sub-prime lending, so they’re more likely to lend based on the merits of an investment versus having to maintain capital to sure up their balance sheet. Also, consider the local commercial lender who’s mission is to lend only to local businesses.

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Obama Pushes Small Business Aid for Job Recovery

Posted by: John Tozzi, BusinessWeek

The president pledged to extend loan aid and tax breaks to small businesses and to create a new tax credit for hiring new workers in a speech at the Brookings Institution today. He also suggested the Treasury will use some of the TARP money originally intended to bail out banks to aid small businesses.

Following the White House jobs summit last week, a tour of businesses in Allentown, Pa., and a forum last month to address small business access to capital, Obama’s speech today is the latest recognition that a Main Street recovery must parallel Wall Street’s rally to ease unemployment.

Aside from the new hires tax credit, a lot of the small business aid extends existing tax and lending relief into next year. The details available are here:

• He wants to create a short-term tax credit for new hiring in 2010 (a proposal Obama floated over a year ago in the campaign).
• He wants to eliminate capital gains taxes on new equity investments in small businesses for one year (these are 75% excluded for now).
• He wants to extend the stimulus provision that lets businesses immediately deduct up to $250,000 in capital investments to 2010.
• He wants to keep the increased guarantees and reduced fees on SBA loans going into 2010.

There’s been chatter about using TARP funds to aid small businesses for months, with few details yet. Such a proposal may have become more viable since the Treasury announced Monday that the cost of the bailout appears to be $200 billion less than the $341 billion originally expected.

Aside from small business aid, Obama announced investment in infrastructure and a plan modeled on “cash for clunkers” to encourage homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient.

Venture capitalist and White House adviser John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) pitched a Cash-for-Caulkers program to weatherize homes just over a month ago. A nationwide tax credit for weatherizing homes could bolster the construction industry and countless small contractors who have been wanting for work since the housing bust. Such a program needs approval from Congress.

via businessweek.com

As a small business owner, I’m happy to see the President pushing small business aid. However, at the same I’m disappointed that it’s taken so long. This should have been a key part of the recovery, in parallel with the bank industry bail-outs.

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Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2009

via time.com

A thought provoking list from TIME magazine. I was particularly interested in the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s new recommendations that advised women to begin routine mammograms at age 50 instead of 40, to switch from yearly to biennial screenings, and to eliminate breast self-exams. This gets to the heart of the national healthcare debate; do Americans want task forces determining their health care?

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