If you’re from the western USA, you’ll recognize “Les Schwab Tire”.  The company became the dominant player in their market, earning profit margins three times higher than their competitors.  From humble beginnings in 1952, Les Schwab, knowing almost nothing about the tire business, sold his home and life insurance policy to buy a failing tire [...]

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Rolls Royce was in crisis needing to secure new financing from the markets and assurances from the government that the business would survive. In the middle of the crisis, a new CEO was appointed and in January 2023 Tufan Erginbilgiç took the helm. His opening remarks to the 42,000 employees was a message of both [...]

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Conquering with force only brings resistance Guiding teams in new product launches and developing new strategic initiatives is a big part of what IIBD does but as tough as it may be to get the strategy right, by far the more difficult is job is getting the strategy implemented.  Business leaders everywhere know the frustration; [...]

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Peloton was founded by John Foley who had a vision of bringing high energy boutique fitness classes into people’s homes.  The strategy was rock solid with a laser focused customer segmentation.  That is until Covid came along and Peloton got greedy and abandoned their strategy.  Today some of you may actually still use one but [...]

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When Cat Stevens sang “It’s not time to make a change” he could have been singing about Kodak two decades later.  In the late 1990s Fuji and Kodak dominated the photographic film business controlling over 80% of the global market. Few could have predicted that within a decade, one would go from printing money to [...]

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There used to be a time when athletes were told “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game”. This was a time when athletics was viewed as a way of preparing you for life, to develop a moral compass, to take the high road, to be a good citizen, and [...]

Read More... from Adidas – Holding out for a hero

When launching a new product, overcoming skepticism, both internally and externally, is mission critical. The key to success is ensuring that your product empowers people to achieve their goals.   However, as important as this is, many make the mistake of believing the only goals that customers have are financial.  While long-term benefits are typically measured [...]

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As organizations grow, their complexity increases and the internal competition for scarce resources intensifies. Without a clear vision and strategy confusion ensues, eventually leading to a complete loss of team motivation.   While many see the development of a vision and the accompanying strategy as a top-down directive, its importance extends far beyond the C suite.   [...]

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In the 1990’s Finnish based Nokia surpassed Motorola in mobile phone sales, gaining control of approximately 40% of the world mobile phone market.  Nokia’s hand sized mobile phones hit a sweet spot in the market and became so ubiquitous that people didn’t ask what kind of phone you had but rather which model of Nokia [...]

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