Peter Drucker was one of the greatest management and leadership scholars ever. He studied business, managers, leaders and how this intersected with society. As a consultant and an academic he wrote 39 books and probably founded modern management. His perspective on ‘the customer’ provides us with key insights today that allow us to build sustainable […]
READ MOREGet performance improvement from your management framework
High performing teams gain performance improvement. They plan, act, learn and replan to realise performance improvement. They have a culture of learning, supported by having a performance measurement framework that provides feedback. Iterative and progressive improvement is achieved over many cycles of acting, measuring and learning. High performing teams use measurement and improvement techniques […]
READ MOREIgnore the customer at your own peril – Lessons from the Masters failure
There are business lessons from the failure of Masters. The strategy was wrong. By focusing on the competition, they ignored the customer. When you ignore the customer your fate is sealed. Woolworths/Masters ignored customer feedback and 63 stores will be no more. By focusing on “sucking the oxygen out of Bunnings” they delivered appalling customer experiences that will cost them up […]
READ MOREKnow your awesome customer and then, you may find them…
We all know that there are some customers that are worth more than others. It is something we often do not like to talk about, but it is the reality. Not all customers are equal. This is about how to identify your awesome customers – the ones that are profitable and promoters of what you do. […]
READ MOREOrange Sky Laundry
Last night I attended a Meetup with the founders of Orange Sky Laundry, a truly humbling experience. The Meetup was organised by Paul and Joeri from BigJump, and held at River City Labs. Orange Sky Laundry is the mobile laundry service that provides a free service to homeless people, and you can learn more about Orange Sky Laundry here. Listening to, and […]
READ MOREReflections on the Leader’s Edge Luncheon with Greg Hywood
Fairfax Media is a 185 year old newspaper company, that over the last 6 (or so) years has transformed itself into diversified media business. So as well as The Age, the AFR and Sydney Morning Herald, now also think of Domain, Stan and RSVP, amongst others. Greg Hywood is the CEO and Managing Director of Fairfax Media. Greg presented at the […]
READ MOREThe Five Tenets of the Customer Centric Approach to Business
There is a lot of hype about customer centricity. Customer centricity is not something we can just bolt-on to old business models. The benefits of the customer centric approach are real. However, we do need to reorient our thinking. Let’s start with the Five Tenets of the Customer Centric approach to Business. The customer […]
READ MOREThe Nine Imperatives for Leaders
Being customer centric is often cited by business leaders as a goal. However, customer centric leaders need to do more than talk. It requires leadership that is based on the principles of the customer centric approach to business, and then on the imperatives for leaders that these principles demand. The companion post, the Five Tenets […]
READ MOREKPIs and Dashboards for CPA
Business leaders often struggle with making KPIs meaningful and also how to make sense of their dashboards. KPIs have to be linked to strategy, the results we want to achieve. Dashboards have to be user friendly, which essentially means answering three questions (1) what is performance doing, (2) why, (3) and what now? The […]
READ MOREYou need to know what your customers value
In an economy that is shifting towards an experience economy, organisations are shifting focus towards improving the customer experience. However, prior to designing the experience we need to know what customers value. When we know what customers value, then we can design experiences that deliver on that value. It is commonly understood that most sales […]
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