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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Intel’s Branding Strate ...

One of the most important Maxims of Hi-Tech is to never confuse customers with names. This is something Intel regularly does with its open code naming of technologies, obtuse names like Montevina. It is intenti ... 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

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

It’s all about good man ...

During the late eighties execs had to sit through lectures about the superiority of Japanese management. After sitting through one, Jim Morgan, of Applied Materials replied ... ... See more

The company’s name is i ...

If you think you can lose a lot by misnaming your product, imagine what happens when you misname your company? Worse, it can have long term consequences. Apple rose above the crowd, when PCs were just called ... See more

Tunneling through a com ...

Tunneling through a competitor’s pricing walls is a very effective strategy. AMD successfully used this to gain share in the microprocessor market. It starts with carefully examining the existing market struc ... See more

Tech businesses need Pr ...

If you approach product development as a task of managing you invariably introduce products that were in demand last year. It is a basic error to have product managers in technology businesses. Product managers ... See more

More on principles and ...

The underlying principles and purpose of their leaders govern the outcome of all businesses. ... 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

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