Posted on February 12, 2019

Most businesses seem to be waiting for something concrete to happen with Brexit before acting. The stance seems to be once we know what’s decided we can act. This is wrong. Good business planners look at any situation and attempt to work out the absolute worst scenario, the best scenario and the others in between. […]

Posted on December 03, 2018

Our third blog on global challenges in business strategy looks at changing models of capitalism. With a 1980’s MBA and 30 years’ experience successfully developing my own and client businesses, you’d expect me to be used to applying SWOT and PESTLE analyses and Porter’s Five Forces. But today with the start of COP 24 in […]

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 […]