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Author Archives: Ben
Making Customer Segmentation Deliver
Few phrases have as much currency in today’s business-to-consumer (B2C) companies as the customer-centric organization. Although the particulars vary widely, most companies pursuing customer-centricity rely on some form of market segmentation. Segmentation, according to strategy + business author Corey Yulinsky, provides insight into customer behaviour, habits and preferences, increasing the odds of success in marketing ... more »
Valuing social responsibility programs
Companies face increasing pressure from governments, competitors and employees to play a leading role in addressing a wide array of environmental, social and governance issues in company’s supply chain. But do they create financial value? Gathering the data needed to justify sustained, strategic investments in such programs can be difficult, according to McKinsey Quarterly authors ... more »
Competing for the Global Middle Class
Leaders of multinational corporations have lucrative opportunity on much bigger playing field: a global middle-class market. In 2011, according to strategy + business authors Edward Tse, Bill Russo and Ronald Haddock, it includes about 400 million people in the mature middle classes of the U.S., Europe, Japan and another 300 to 500 million people in ... more »
How to Be a Truly Global Company
During the high-growth years between 1992 and 2007, the globalization of commerce galloped at a faster pace than in any period in history. Now, amid the chronic unemployment and financial crisis fall out, some observers wonder whether globalization needs a time-out.
The problem is not globalization, according to strategy + business authors C.K. Prahalad and Hrishi ... more »
Getting beyond Green: Envisioning an Industrial Reboot
According to Nancy Nichols (in Strategy + business) many businesspeople as well as environmentalists are converging on one new truth, and that is, the degree of change delivered by incremental solutions is not enough to address some critical environment problems. We tend to agree!
What’s needed is transformational change that enables leaps in policy, procedure and the ... more »
The M-Commerce Challenge to Retail
At a time when retailers are struggling to reach customers, who have become more and more hesitant to spend in a soft economic environment, this new use of technology will divide retailers further. The early adopters of mobile commerce (m-commerce) will have greater opportunities to influence shoppers in real time as they build “in the ... more »
The Three Paths to Open Innovation
Finding and developing good ideas is what corporate innovation strategy is all about. Booz & Company’s research shows that most companies with robust open innovation capabilities are seven times as effective as firms with weak capabilities, and twice as effective as those with moderate capabilities, in generating returns on their overall R&D project investment portfolio.
Every ... more »
The changing face of Asian personal financial services
A new survey of 20,000 consumers in 13 Asian markets shows big shifts in banking relationships, product and service needs and channels.
A preference for local institutions
Almost 81% of these consumers in emerging Asian markets and 63% of consumers in developed Asian markets consider it important to deal with a local institution. The preference for banking ... more »
How companies manage sustainability: McKinsey Global Survey results