Posted on November 20, 2018

For most of this century we have tried to be smart. Smart cities and smart economies are terms that have been thrown around to such an extent that there is now little agreement on their meaning. Yet their underpinning concepts are very important for any business and will significantly affect everyone. Why Smart is Confused? […]

Posted on November 13, 2018

Our economic world is changing in ways that are unrecognisable to many people. These changes challenge the basis of any business plan. Brexit is just one factor. Now, in the UK the assumptions upon which many organisations have been based for the last 40+ years, no longer apply.  We might have disliked the EU rulebooks […]

Posted on October 31, 2018

More people describe themselves as a Growth Coach and I wonder sometimes what they think the term means. For me, there are times when the words Growth Coach mean the same and for others that the words are completely opposed. What does a Coach Do? Any coach fulfils five roles for the person they are […]

Posted on October 17, 2018

The number of businesses that do not have a business strategy is startling. They survive based solely on their ability to cope with whatever is thrown at them. If they’re a rapidly growing business, then it’s not surprising when the lack of strategy leaves that growth unsupported. It’s only a matter of time until the […]

Posted on October 16, 2018

Despite over 30 years of positive promotion a large number of businesses do not have a business plan or strategy. Yet having a strategy enables the business to decide where it wants or needs to go. And then achieve that objective over a defined period. Just such a case was the CATS Faculty of the […]

Posted on October 09, 2018

My blog this week looked at effective innovation and how this was increased by using the power of marketing. There is a strong correlation between successful product launches, where marketing and technical development goes hand in hand. When promotion is bolted on the end, the innovative usually fails. But there are always exceptions to rules, […]

Posted on October 09, 2018

In a world where everything is new, improved or sensational, it’s time to consider what makes innovation effective. Bad marketing overhypes many so-called innovative products. It’s often symptomatic of the marketing department being called in at the end of the new product development process rather than the beginning. Yet it is well-known for effective innovation […]

Posted on August 29, 2018

Did you achieve a full summer break this year? Or did you go away on holiday and still replied to emails and made mobile calls? And did you fool yourself by saying that you’d only do this until 10am, but then kept looking at your phone? Or did you keep away and then get increasingly […]

Posted on August 10, 2018

Last week I posed 6 reasons for exchanging business cards. Each is potentially impacted by GDPR. All required thought about whether it was company or personal data and what the intent might be. In each case behaviour and processes needed to be considered to stay the right side of the law. GDPR Impacts on Business […]

Posted on August 01, 2018

Welcome to a series of practical thoughts on simple business processes affected by GDPR such as business cards exchange. Today what theorists would call processes related to business card exchange. The rest of us may do this without thinking. As a starting point we must consider all stages of a process before considering the impact. Often […]