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

How the U.S. beat Japan ...

17 Aug 2012

The source of Japan’s failure to move forward is mostly about the failure of their Theory Z management style and an unwillingness to change. Back in the eighties, I did a lot of strategic work in how to turn th ... See more

Strategy versus Grand S ...

It is a general rule that a strategy will fail against the competitor who can master a grand strategy. The reason is that a strategy is composed of one vector where its single focal point is more fragile when e ... See more

Needs and benefits alwa ...

15 Jun 1985

This jewel is one of the most important lessons I remember from Bob Graham. The setting was at an off-site meeting in Monterey during the mid-eighties. Applied Materials was working on its next block-buster: ... 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

Elephants can innovate

Does real innovation only occur in small companies? Not true: here are some big companies that have shown how to innovate. ... 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

The two reasons to adve ...

The two reasons to advertise: Brand Building and Lead Generation ... See more

It is an error to place ...

If you put marketing under sales it will become its slave, losing all vision. Under either, marketing will be driven to be totally tactical, its strategic role eliminated. Sales will focus marketing on the ad ... See more

Average vs Great Leader ...

The average leader retreats to the safety of marcom and IR tricks and denials when surprised by a competitor’s market advance. The great ones steel their organization by internally attacking their product defi ... See more