It was labeled as the first FDA approved sleep aid that wasn’t potentially addictive. The executives of the company who owned the patent believed they had a blockbuster that would revive the company’s fortunes and launch them into the big leagues. With approximately 70 million Americans suffering from insomnia and only 3 million of them […]
International Harvester was started in the 1800’s by the McCormick brothers, ushering in the end of manual harvesting and revolutionizing the agriculture industry. A century later, in the 1980s, all was lost when corporate strategists leaned too heavily on the power of positive thinking to hold up their lofty goals and ‘stretch’ objectives with little […]
For many business executives “Strategic Planning” is viewed as a yearly exercise ranked up there with going to the dentist, filing taxes, or booking an annual flu shot. This negativity comes with a lot of good reasons. For instance, one company nicknamed their strategic planning review the “Inquisition” complete with witch hunts and few executive […]
When I completed my racing career I started my first “real job” as a junior accountant at one of Canada’s largest marinas. Until then I’d had plenty of jobs but with a racing career that kept me in Europe for six months each year my work experiences had all been seasonal, part time and labour […]
The goal of developing a strategy is to ensure that business objectives are met by aligning resources with market opportunities. What may sound simple gets exceptionally complicated when internal teams compete for corporate time and money while external competitors battle for the same customers. This takes the need for strategic planning to a whole new […]
“One half of my marketing dollars are wasted … I just don’t know which half.” 1 That was the complaint of business people worldwide who invested in everything from print advertising to lavish events in an effort to woo customers. Before digital marketing we could only broadcast a message and hope someone saw it. With […]
The Ford Motor company has thrust itself to the forefront of the EV market. The Mustang Mach E was launched in 2021 and this year we’ll see the new Ford Lighting followed by a series of E-transit vehicles (think delivery vans). But success didn’t happen overnight and with most businesses pivoting to new “Sustainable” markets […]
Aligning business resources with great market opportunities can sometimes lead to some tough ethical situations. The world is a complicated place and enterprises can find it is difficult to choose with whom to do business. We don’t always get it right. Even with the best of intentions companies can find themselves associated with countries or […]
Recently an executive left their company for a 30% pay raise and an impressive job title. In less than six months, citing a very challenging corporate culture, they returned to their previous company. Someone once stated that culture eats strategy for breakfast. If that’s true, then we should be careful about what we put on […]
I think we can all agree, 2021 has been a crazy year. Global issues like sustainability, Covid 19, and economic uncertainty all make crafting a winning strategy in 2022 an imperative. However, what masquerades for “a strategy” in most businesses still tends to be no more than a collection of aspirational statements and fluffy bullet […]
