Unique Business Strategies

For all you innovators - here is a great B.O.P. story. Take a look at what some people oriented creative thinking

Thought you might like to see some tips on creating a breakthrough strategy - click on the link to read them

EBOOK - Breakthrough Strategy - How Established Companies Create and Exploit New Unique Strategic Positions

Business definitions
There is probably no more prevailing a belief that a company has than its perception of its business purpose.
Yet asking 'What business are we really in?' does not necessarily mean that any new or even better definition will be discovered, the point is that if there is an outside chance of discovering something new it should be asked.
... What tends to emerge are decisions as to; who the business visualizes as its customers and its competitors, what it regards as its competitive advantage, what it believes to be the factors critical for success, what its offer to its customers should be and how it should compete, in other words its strategy.
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If you would like to see some "silver bullets" for business development from yours truly published in Oxford's business magazine B4 then take a peek at this!

For all students of Human Remains Management here's something about good management practice, The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses.

Interested in finding a strategic breakthrough?... watch this on Blue Ocean Strategy

To all who wrote saying they’d like to attend a training based film shoot.... Thank you to you all. I haven’t got dates yet but June is looking good. Let me know which days of the week are good for you and I’ll work around it.
By the way the content will be around MANAGEMENT.
I’d like to look at the realities of running a business, such as BUSINESS PURPOSE, RESOURCE CONCENTRATION, RESULTS MANAGING MANAGERS BY OBJECTIVES etc, etc. A further interesting topic is FINDING NEW B...USINESS POTENTIAL. For those of you who cry; “Research”. Think window! I’m thinking of ways to turn vulnerability and weakness, size and market threat into opportunities.
Then there is business strategy itself. And we won’t be looking at Porter but strategies based on ADDING PRODUCTS to what we’re doing now, COMPLEMENTARY PRODUCTS and then (ingeniously) BREAKTHROUGH PRODUCTS. Also we mustn’t forget decisions concerning SPECIALISATION, DIVERSIFICATION, INTEGRATION as well as MAKE OR BUY DECISIONS.
Andrew
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For the second video on how to create a unique strategic position given by yours truly, please click on the link below.
You'll see how to make an effective response to the challenge of profit and growth with the means to discover new and viable business.

Take a look at yours truly speaking on a series of 8 films on how to develop a unique business strategy.

INTERESTING NEWS According to research by analyst house Gartner, a ratio of more than two to one CEOs are set to increase their IT investment in 2012. This is partly due to new trends, such as mobile and cloud, rising to the foreground of the CEO's attention. With the economy still a key concern for CEOs, maintaining growth this year is their main priority and reducing costs comes in second place. Gartner advises that CEOs and CIOs should form a close alliance over the coming year and establish what new information can be gathered to manage their business better and develop an information strategy to lead transformation in the business.
Find out how Huddle's customers have already turned to the cloud to support innovation and improve information management across their enterprise.

7. LEVERAGING SECONDARY ACTIVITIES: PROFIT THROUGH PEER ASSISTED LEARNING We’ve been looking at leverage. Last time we touched on leveraging secondary activities in the value chain – particularly in the context of co-operative alliances. What do we mean by this? Simply that when forging strategic alliances a manager is required to manage the interdependencies between the partners and appreciate the capabilities and benefits each partner offers an alliance to leverage the valu...e chain in a process of holistic management.
Well here is another point. Managers need to design activities into the value chain that actually BUILD business because if they don’t it will not be possible to increase profitable revenue.
Thus productive activity is time spent creating products, marketing products, improving business processes, managing revenue generating projects, setting up joint ventures, and putting scale into a business. But there is something even more profitable and strategic than productive time, this is SUPER PRODUCTIVE TIME. Super productive time leverages the systems a manager builds around any of the company’s principle revenue generating activities. For example super-productive time would be creating systems that create products and systems that market a company’s products and services.
See you Andy
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6. LEVERAGING SECONDARY ACTIVITIES : PROFIT THROUGH PEER ASSISTED LEARNING Deciding the company’s value chain of activities, as we have seen provides offers the means to achieve long term sustainability for its breakthrough strategies.
Yet the value chain offers something more. The choices a company makes when deciding strategy impact whether it pursues an organic (‘do-it-yourself’) as opposed to a co-operative (‘buying in’) strategy. The selection will impact growth and ...profit. For example just how do you enter a new market with a new or existing product? And how would you create market extensions around your core product? Why not by way of a joint venture? This might introduce much needed capability and resource where these do not exist.
Firms such as Amazon, BMW, Dell and Marks and Spencer, dependent on networks of suppliers, illustrate ‘buy ‘choices. Companies like Cargill and Zara operating ‘make’ strategies operate almost wholly owned value chains.
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5. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FROM THE VALUE CHAIN : PROFIT THROUGH PEER ASSISTED LEARNING Achieving further profit from a superior market standing with any one, or all of the three strategies is dependent on a sound organisational structure. This is a vital step to ensure that the right products and services reach the right customers. Such an imperative leads us to our second area of PTPAL.
Deciding on the “how” is clearly tantamount to designing the company’s value chain of act...ivities – from the purchase of raw materials to the manufacture and sale of the final products and services to the targeted customers. The selection of activities should be guided by issues of sustainability. Competitive advantage is derived by doing things differently in the activity system. How can this be done? By carrying out activities in the business differently to competitors or by selecting activities that are different to those that competitors carry out!
Strategy will be successful if it combines these differentiated activities into a system that creates the requisite fit between the needs of the environment and the actions taken by the company.
More on value chain issues next time
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4. TWO MORE GROWTH STRATEGIES: PROFIT THROUGH PEER ASSISTED LEARNING Last time we examined the classical growth strategy; product penetration-development. Now we turn to two further growth strategies both of which are underplayed. The first of these; market extension, focuses on creating new growth and new value by addressing the opportunities that surround a product rather than improving the product itself. Companies, like Cargill, Intuit, Shell, Tesco and Virgin operating w...ith this strategy make growth happen by pursuing demand innovation- rather than product innovation, a by-product of which is in fact a new generation of demand!
Finally the third growth strategy concentrates on inventing new ways to better serve the customer, capture value and create strategic control of their industries. These businesses create innovative business designs to differentiate themselves from their competitors to sell their products and services that are often similar to everyone else’s. We only have to think of Amazon, Apple, William Cook, CEMEX, Dell, Virgin Atlantic and Zara to see this strategy at play.
The interesting thing, by the way, is that each of these three strategies offers companies the means to colonise new positions to achieve growth and profit! The trick though is to sustain them with competitive advantage.
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3. A CLASSIC GROWTH STRATEGY: PROFIT THROUGH PEER ASSISTED LEARNING Greetings! In yesterday’s post I mentioned three areas of coaching and mentoring support to facilitate profit and growth in firms. Well if we start with growth strategy, it’s important to appreciate that growth and profit flow from three vectors of business development! The first is product penetration-development; the second new market extension and the third diversification in the form of new business mode...ls. Let’s look at product penetration-development now and the others next time. Product penetration and development is the traditional means of growth. Companies, like BMW, Hertz and Tata seeking growth typically pursued product focussed strategies. These are directed at creating innovative products, expanding the market for them globally through acquisition to create market share and creating efficiencies. The key dynamics are about inventing innovative products brand extensions, core product enhancements and new product introductions. The other strategies next time!
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2. THE PURPOSE OF BUSINESS: PROFIT THROUGH PEER ASSISTED LEARNING Our next meeting was convened in Joe’s Grill Bar, in Summertown, Oxford! It was a sunny but chilly day so hot croissant and coffee was most welcome. The conversation flowed with cascades of erudite comment in an enthralling meeting! First we reminded ourselves of the aim of profit through peer assisted learning (PTPAL); profit and growth. Then we organised the concept around three fundamentals; first strategies for growth, next the value chain and finally management development. I'll talk more on this next time. All the best