Competition never sleeps

Summary : It is a basic principle of tactical awareness that the competition never sleeps. You must assume that they are always trying to find areas of competitive advantage and working to reverse any areas of competitive disadvantage. During the eighties, the ascent of Japan's semiconductor equipment industry was accompanied by high customer satisfaction with their tools and general dissatisfaction with tools made by western suppliers...

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The 5 Business Strategi ...

There are only five business strategies: cost, quality, distribution, technology, and intellectual property (IP). All business strategies break down into these five, or some combination of them. As a general p ... See more

Pricing is a function o ...

Pricing of undeveloped products is one of the biggest issues for companies in high technology. They typically revolve around should one price to cost or value, which is really a marketing question which assume ... See more

Define and refine your ...

This seems obvious. It’s so obvious that it is a strategic error that many companies make. First, they over define what are their core strengths. Defining a core strength is simple: any core strength must diffe ... See more

IBM’s Design For Manufa ...

15 Jun 2007

Why does IBM have a semiconductor group when the biggest advancements in computing power are coming from architectural innovation these days and the lighting to the end of the Moore’s Law Tunnel keeps getting d ... See more

Strategic versus tactic ...

Confusing the two is a dangerous mistake. Not understanding the difference typically leads to tactics with no strategy. Tactics will then often conflict with the implicit strategy. Yet, these are very common ... See more

Narratives – not earnin ...

It is a strategic error to focus too closely on the more predictable control of quarterly earnings results, while providing a stale narrative for where future earnings growth will come from. Earnings are just t ... See more

Develop products on nee ...

Then, wants and features will drop out. Don’t confuse the two. A need can be identified because it is always associated with a benefit the customer receives when it is fulfilled. In the case of marketing to ... See more

Monetization - The firs ...

When does the innovation clock start: With the idea, with the first paper, with the first alpha tool, or who’s first to create value? ... See more

It’s always about bad o ...

Every corporate problem is ultimately a management or leadership issue. If it isn’t, a company is in trouble because they are not leading. If they are not leading, they have given up control of their destiny ... See more

Risk versus Uncertainty ...

Risk is when an outcome’s probability is known. Uncertainty is when an outcome’s probability is unknown. Know which is which before you weigh your decisions ... See more