(Time to read this Blog section is about 60 seconds)
- What’s your commitment to innovation and market leadership? While Nike and Adidas limit shoe customization to colour and material, New Balance, the high-performance running shoe leader with 25% market share, has made a major investment in technology to create shoes with customized soles with just the right shape and firmness for each specific runner.
Brooks has introduced its custom ‘FitStations’ in 12 locations across the USA, complete with special equipment to measure the biometrics of how each customer runs and a 3-dimensional foot scan developed by tech company HP.
So, what commitments and investments are you making to be the leader in your market? Are you playing ‘leapfrog’…or are you always playing ‘catch-up’?
- Walmart’s #1 selling item. You’d never guess this in a thousand years. Bananas are Walmart’s #1 top selling item. They sell over a billion pounds a year.
- What to look for when hiring managers and leaders for your business. Here’s a helpful insight from the former head of HR for Google.
“We were hiring on the wrong criteria – SAT scores, schools attended and major subjects studied. But these were not predictive of job performance. What predicted a manager or leader’s success far better was their ability to make human connections with their team, being interested in their lives and careers and being accessible to them. Employees were happier, more productive and less likely to leave.”
- Big changes happening in advertising. In 2017 advertisers around the world spent a total of $31 million more on digital ads than on TV ads…and the gap is widening. This has huge implications for traditional TV networks.
- China in the lead…again. Amazon is targeting to start drone deliveries in year 2020 but JD.com, China’s 2nd largest online retailer, is already making drone deliveries to over 100 rural villages in China. These drones operate with no human guidance and enable next-day delivery to remote
- What’s out-of-date in your business? Everything we do tells customers whether we’re paying attention to the details…or not. I was in a medical waiting room last week and noticed a sign on the wall proudly promoting an event that took place three and half years ago.
Then, because they were running late, I picked up a news magazine to update myself on what’s going on in the world. It was from April of 2015.
Look around your business and check out your website. I see websites all the time listing ‘Upcoming Events’ from two years ago….and nothing since then. The message is clear, “We stopped giving a damn two years ago!”
