In a world where consumers are continuously bombarded with choice, companies must invest in finding out why they are losing sales and how they can plug the gaps.
Advertising might persuade a customer to consider your brand, but there are several more steps they have to take before they click ‘buy’ on your website or hand over their cash to a member of your in-store sales staff.
If you work for a unicorn startup, you must consider how potential changes in its capital structure will affect your stock option.
Many employees or prospective employees don’t know everything they need to know about the potential long-term value of their stock options, and do not even attempt to find out. “To bring this home, it’s like negotiating your salary without specifying the currency you’re being paid in.”
Being dominating and being likeable can both be good qualities in a boss, and often a hybrid is even better.
In a New York Times article Phyllis Korkki explores the advantages and disadvantages of two key styles of leadership – the dominant leadership style where the boss is in control of everything, and the prestige style where the boss’s main motivation is to be liked or admired.
One woman’s story shows that even the busiest people can find enough time to launch a business.
Embarking on your dream project might sound impossible if you are already weighed down by commitments. But advice from an entrepreneur who started her company while she also had a husband battling cancer, and a baby to care for, might just change your mind.
When you embark on a new venture, resist the temptation to be smug – get appropriate advice and employ fresh strategies.
As an experienced entrepreneur you almost certainly have a tried-and-tested business formula you rely on to stay on top of the game. But it’s risky to believe that model will carry you smoothly into a new market.
It’s the company you keep – in work and out – that colours your journey to the top.
The tactics most likely to increase your success as a CEO are not what you might expect.
Company boards on which the CEO is the only employee are becoming the norm, but how well do they work? Recent research suggests independent boards are actually detrimental to profitability.
In 1999, 36% of boards in America’s S&P 500 companies were of this kind. By 2015 it had risen to 75%. A key driver has been the recent history of governance and accounting scandals.
Are you and your employees stuck in a vicious circle of firefighting?
Workers’ compensation business illustrates the cycle of rework – and more rework – that comes from not doing jobs right first time. Despite knowing that legal processes and costs could be slashed by contacting workers within 24 hours of injury, staff were too busy to do so.
Companies competing in this era of disruption must adopt agile marketing practices or risk becoming irrelevant.
On average internet users decide whether or not to leave a web page after just three seconds’ browsing; the proliferation of information brought on by rapid technological innovation means that being able to get things done quickly has become more important than ever.
For your company to succeed you must develop a bespoke digital strategy to complement its unique selling proposition (USP).
A clear digital strategy is vital to provide direction and enable you to manage your company’s digital efforts, track their progress and, if necessary, change course.
If you want to build great consumer experiences, make customer service your company’s priority.
Despite the service industry’s predominance in the private sector, most service companies still use operating models designed for the manufacturing industry, where the focus is on the quantity and quality of goods produced rather than interactions with customers.
Limit the fallout from crises by building trust with consumers and the public CEOs should axe corporate social responsibility units and instead make accountability everyone’s…
Is internationalisation threatening your company’s long-established culture? So-called "cultural disintegration" can occur when colleagues in different countries struggle to integrate with unfamiliar social norms, causing…
Digital disruption and the rapid pace of change mean no marketer can be an expert in every channel.
Writing for Marketing Week, Jonathan Bacon takes a look at how the rise of personalised marketing and digital channels has left employers facing an increasingly wide skills gap, as they struggle to identify exactly which skills they should be recruiting for.
If you’re cooking up a career as an entrepreneur, there are some key ingredients you would be wise to toss in the mix.
“Be ready for the extreme ups and downs, the sleepless nights, the despair, the feeling of being alone, the hope, elation and the excitement.”
It’s likely that you spend a fair proportion of your time problem-solving. What’s the secret to overcoming hurdles swiftly so you can get on with the important stuff?
Whether you are a homegrown startup or a multi-million multinational, obstacles will always be thrown in your path. As you try to concentrate on productivity and innovation, fresh difficulties are always around the corner.
Business can be a minefield, which is why employing a military mindset can be one of the most effective ways to direct your teams.
Strategies from the battlefield don’t sound like the natural choice for top-level business leaders, but successful companies actually share more common ground than you think with the US Marines Corps.
You might think it’s easier to do everything yourself, but the path to productive leadership demands that you learn how to delegate effectively.
Everyone knows the frustration of having to re-do a task that you assigned to someone else. If it comes back incomplete or full of errors, the temptation is to decide it’s been a waste of your time and theirs. But that doesn’t have to be the case.
How well does your employer understand your role and the value you bring to your organisation? And do you fully understand it yourself?
Beneath your job description lies a “hidden curriculum of work”, or a “job-within-the-job”. Its unwritten challenges include continuous change management and workplace politics, for example.
If you’re thinking about embarking on a company reorganisation, it’s worth bearing in mind that 80% of them fail to meet their objectives in the time planned. In fact, 10% of them do significant damage.
“How you go about your reorg is as important as – and sometimes more important than – what you do.”
Here’s a five-step process for getting it right:
The noise of modern life can distract marketing teams from creating their best work.
Whether you head up the marketing department for a lean, energetic startup or a powerful blue chip corporation, it is important that your team is consistently creative. There are a number of steps you can take to ensure your team is able to do its best creative work in an “always on” environment.
Companies must avoid routine thinking and behaviour and embrace wholesale transformation to ensure they remain at the top of their game.
Your company’s way of doing business might have brought success for 20 years. It might still work today. But routine leads to complacency, and in the world of business, complacency can be deadly.
How nuclear thinking can help you eliminate human error. JPMorgan Chase was hacked because somebody forgot to update the security settings of a server to…
As the business world changes with increasing pace, leaders need to develop a new set of core skills if they are to keep up, write…
In an ever more digital and connected world, business leaders must collaborate to innovate.
Cisco’s ‘ecosystem innovation’ process differs from a more traditional form of collaboration between companies. Instead of research and development alliances Cisco’s process is designed to explore opportunities and develop and test solutions with end users in a short space of time.
The success of your organisation depends on good decision making, a key requirement of good leadership.
The human brain has evolved to make most decisions automatically. Behavioural and neuroscience shows that our brains struggle with information overload, especially when multitasking, leaving them susceptible to subjectivity, bias and errors.
When it comes to networking: bigger is better. Thanks to today’s virtual networking opportunities, you can easily build and maintain relationships with contacts around the world.
Face-to-face meetings are the perfect way to conduct business; the ideal way to read, get to know and understand your contacts. However, raising your international profile can also result in professional success.
Is the best solution still germinating when the average brainstorming session ends? Take more time to let creativity flow.
The long-established brainstorm model puts a group of colleagues together for an intensive hour or two to come up with as many ideas as possible. When embarrassing silences kick in, it’s generally accepted that the well has run dry and the session will fizzle out.
Safeguarding sensitive company information is something we all need to be vigilant about in this technological age. But did you know that security breaches are far more likely to be an inside job than the work of an outside hacker?
Marc van Zadelhoff, writing for Harvard Business Review, cites IBM’s 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index which established that 60 per cent of all attacks are carried out by people within the company.
If your employees are failing to work as a team, it’s time to show them the value of collaboration.
You might regard teamwork as a top priority but do your staff pick up on those values? A recent survey by Corporate Culture Chasm revealed that most employees think leaders want to see competition among staff members.
Startup companies will naturally have a keen eye for innovation as they work out their route to the top. But larger, long-established companies can keep pace with the new kids on the block by maximising the talent at their disposal.
You probably have some excellent talent on your teams. But how do you motivate it to come up with cutting edge ideas and deliver results?
What is it that keeps some brands alive for decades, or even centuries, while others suddenly emerge and just as quickly disappear? Steve Olenski, writing for Forbes, identifies six approaches that distinguish we-established brands from the rest.
Olenski sees brands as being pressured by the marketing hype surrounding each new trend, and by continuous demographic shifts.
If landing a seat on a board is one of your goals, you need to do some serious preparation to make it happen. Writing for Forbes, Stuart R. Levine sets out six actions to increase your chances of success.
“It’s critical that you take smart steps to develop your resources and skills into assets that will showcase your credentials and position you for success,” Levine advises.
In times of economic uncertainty, collaboration with startups offers corporates a route to becoming more innovative and profitable.
As Britain gears up for Brexit, the country is bracing itself for a period of uncertainty. It is in times like these that business growth can be hard to come by. But larger companies can boost innovation and their bottom line by partnering with nimble, fast-growing startups.
Digital technology has put a wealth of human data at our fingertips. How can we be sure we are using it responsibly and ethically?
There’s no doubt that facts and statistics offer valuable insights that can be employed to boost business. But it’s vital to lay down ground rules as a company before using personal information to our advantage, says Paul Daugherty, writing for MIT Sloan.
The genius lone wolf is the romantic vision of innovation. For best creative results it is multi-disciplinary teamwork that should be encouraged and rewarded, writes Tendayi Viki for Forbes.
Tapping into the massive potential of collective creativity is not as straightforward as simply putting colleagues in a room together.
Five key leadership behaviours lay behind rare ‘breakthrough’ success in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) business.
‘Breakthroughs’ are products that expand or create new product categories – often required to maintain or grow a company’s market share. In the CPG market, 80% of growth comes from 1% of brands. Breakthrough success is so rare that of 3,500 new brands only 18 made the grade.
You may have great products with competitive prices and know who to target, but without an effective customer strategy you can still miss out on sales.
Writing in Strategy+Business, Thomas Ripsam and Louis Bouquet present ten principles to help you succeed by adding distinctive value and experience to your offering.
Does your backup plan have your back, or is it holding you back?
“Get rid of your safety net,” says Stephanie Vozza in an article written for Fast Company, in which Vozza proposes that having a backup plan might not always be good for business.
Giving feedback should be constructive and helpful, but that might not be how everybody views it
The key requirements of giving good feedback are good intentions, sound preparation and a calm response. The feedback process takes a lot of time, and can be a cause of anxiety for both manager and employee, particularly when you are dealing with somebody who might cry, yell or get defensive.
Developing the right culture for your company can mean the difference between success or failure
Most of us want an organisational culture that “leaves employees engaged, loyal, empowered to innovate and quick to collaborate,” says Adam Gale, writing for Management Today. The problem is, culture is difficult to define and even harder to change.
Trust takes years to build, yet can be destroyed in an instant. But retaining and regaining the confidence of your employees can be achieved if you modify your actions
Trust is a precious resource. Once broken it can be difficult for businesses and bosses to regain, damaging chances of future success.
Training alone often fails to develop today’s employees into tomorrow’s senior managers. It is systems and behaviours in the workplace that need to change before workers can take an organisation to the next level.
Several mistakes are routinely made when leadership training is offered in a bid to transform good organisations into great ones.
A counterintuitive approach may be the way to make groups think more creatively.
Your team is stuck for new ideas. It seems they have come to the end of the road and are just regurgitating old suggestions.
Some people think creativity is a random process; others believe it can be taught in a classroom.
Not all of us are natural leaders, but mastering some fundamental skills can boost your confidence and performance.
If you struggle with leadership, you might be inclined to focus on your deficiencies. Learning and implementing some key techniques of success will be a more fruitful response, according to business psychologist Dionne Mahaffey writing for Forbes.
Are meetings with your team a waste of your time and theirs? Do they wander and drag on? Do they fail to serve their purpose?
If you dread holding meetings, you are not alone. Most professionals hate them. But Elizabeth Dukes, writing for Inc.com, advocates these simple fixes to make them more bearable and productive.
Stress has become a modern obsession, but is trying to get rid of it really the best idea?
Some of us wear it in false modesty like an endurance medal, while others proclaim how hard they work to banish it through mindfulness or exercise.
The truth is that stress is inescapable. We should change focus and embrace it as a powerful tool, rather than fight a perpetual battle against it.
There’s more to building a successful management team than strategies and directives – people’s feelings come into play too.
Your board members may be good at their particular roles, but when you put any group of people together, emotions will always have an impact. How you choose to deal with them will affect outcomes, says Dr Lola Gershfeld, writing for Chief Executive.
