Content about Executive

Customers are unwilling to entertain higher prices, even if the products involved offer better value than before. George F. Brown, Jr. shares a no-risk strategy that works by offering options.

In the early 70s, The Godfather gave us the immortal phrase “Make him an offer he can’t refuse.” While his line of business was well suited to executing an offer of this kind, most of us are in businesses where the customer can turn down an offer without having to worry about the consequences of saying no to the Godfather.

We talk to the stock market and forex trader whose contentious comments about the recession to the BBC last year gripped the world’s media.

When you learn to know when you’re done with everything the work day throws at you, you’ll free up a lot more time to focus on the things that truly matter, says Jason Womack.

One of my clients recently told me the following story:

Recently, I worked with a client implementing a new “customer partnering” initiative that provided a valuable learning experience. This firm had set ambitious goals to collaborate with some of its largest customers on new product development projects, hoping to avoid outcomes where the contribution was off the mark, timed inappropriately, or otherwise failed to yield a win for the two organizations involved.

An executive in this firm described what they had done, and the outcome, as follows:

Many years ago, in a course on information theory, I learned that one way to measure the value of information was by quantifying the quality of relevant decisions made with and without it. A few case studies suggested that the concept, while clear from a common sense perspective, was hard to apply in practice, but a recent project experience provided an example as to the relevance of the concept.

A restructure in 2008 has transformed the fortunes and profile of one South African organisation completely, as Alan Swaby reports.

The name is the same. Many of the business sectors and activities are the same. But the profile and vision of Imperial Holdings has undoubtedly changed from what it was five years ago.

George F. Brown, Jr. identifies four themes for business growth in 2012, and offers his unique insight into implementing your New Year resolutions.

Businesses are developing ambitious plans to achieve their growth and profit goals for 2012. In conversations with many organizations, I hear of four themes that are included in many of these plans.

The question is often asked, why do we work? Some people work to live and others live to work. Some find a balance where life and work flow naturally and seamlessly into one another.

The people we work with influence our experience. Our colleagues, clients, peers and bosses, all of those we cross paths with at work, bear some weight on our satisfaction, productivity, creativity and diligence.

If you are serious about building a customer-facing culture, to make it effective you must involve every department in your company, says George F. Brown, Jr.

Megaprojects don’t get much more ambitious than South Africa’s Coega project, which aims to do nothing less than create a mass production and services environment from scratch. It is a vision that is being achieved in small steps—and one or two large ones.

Recently, we completed a webinar sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Business Markets on the topic of strategy implementation. The participants represented a diverse array of individuals involved in major implementation projects for their firms. As part of this webinar, we provided a summary of ten fundamental lessons about how best-in-class companies manage the translation from strategy to successful implementation.