Waitrose, the cost of living, and the lure of the trend trap
What are trends for? In the minds of most businesses, trends are see as things to follow. They represent the movement of the market in a certain direction, and thus to follow the trend is to follow the money. The formula is pretty basic: “X is starting to become more important to consumers, therefore if […]
Why is strategic thinking so rare?
I saw an old Peter Drucker quote today which really got me thinking: “Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things”. Efficiency versus effectiveness. Doing things right, versus doing the right things. Two deceptively similar modes of working, which are in fact miles apart. One means doing something well, with quality, with skill. And […]
There is no good or bad – only congruent or incongruent
The other day a reader alerted me to a funny little scam being pulled, surprisingly, by Apple. Apparently in the weeks running up to Christmas, they have been known to book all cargo flights out of China, partially to allow for rushes on their stock, but also to chuck a spanner in the works for […]
The fatal flaw of trend-based brands
If you’re a founder, you probably got into the game partly through a desire for freedom. Being your own boss and all that good stuff. Central to this desire is a yearning for control. To be in control not only of your time, but of your destiny. To incubate yourself from the arbitrary whims of […]
The correct use of a “why” within strategy
The following is an excerpt from a book I’m working on, called: No Bullshit Strategy: A founder’s guide to forming a strategy that actually works I hope to have it published by the end of this year, and obviously will promote it on here shamelessly, so hopefully it will be of interest to some of […]
Simple, easy, fun: The power of unconscious strategy
I routinely say that the vast majority of businesses “don’t have a strategy”, but if I’m honest, that’s not entirely accurate. In reality all businesses do, in fact, have a strategy. It’s just that for most of them it’s unconscious. An “unconscious strategy” might seem like a contradiction in terms, given that a strategy is a […]
5 tips on executing strategy
You’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll hear me say it again: A strategy is only as good as the action it provokes. It’s not an intellectual discipline, it’s a practical one. Aggressive, confident, coordinated implementation – that’s the actual product here. Indeed I sometimes think that rather than talking about “strategy” as this […]
Stop confusing strategy and brand strategy
When I tell people I help companies with their “strategy” the response I invariably get is “what kind of strategy?”. This is because people are familiar with isolated subsets of strategy (social media strategy, sales strategy, recruitment strategy, etc.), but they aren’t familiar with “company strategy” as a whole. This “holistic” strategy, which sits at the top […]
What are non-value strategies?
My definition of business strategy – which runs through all these pieces like a thread – is simple: It’s the unique value the business seeks to bring to the market. Businesses are nothing more than vehicles for value exchange, therefore it stands to reason that if you maximise the value you give, you’ll maximise the […]
Does culture *actually* eat strategy for breakfast?
Before getting into this, let me point you in the direction of the always-worthwhile Bread & Jam Festival, where I’m speaking in a couple of weeks. If you’re going to be in London and fancy swinging by I have a 20% off discount with your name on it right here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/243627625787/?discount=BASIC20 Now on with the business at hand… […]