Education and engagement

The lack of training or outright lack of interest of managers is the main obstacle encountered by companies that want to increase the level of commitment to their employees. According to Martin Vickers argues, the Institute for Corporate Productivity, promote commitment in times of economic uncertainty we live is key for organizations. Manea to inculcate the best, he says, is that companies are serious about training their managers in this regard.

The commitment the company is always a matter of prime importance, but in a moment of uncertainty as we live it is even more. When the faltering labor and employees are asked to do more for less, their stress levels rise and fall of commitment. As suggested by Mark Vickers, Institute for Corporate Productivity, in an article published by the American Association Manager, develop effective strategies for workers to have a good level of commitment is key today.

According to a survey conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity, late last year, only one third of American workers were very committed to your business. The level of commitment of nearly a quarter did not exist.

The survey, which involved 776 people, also revealed that four out of five workers, the commitment was important or very important. What happens then? According to Vickers, the problem is that many organizations do not know how to deal with this issue. "Commitment", in fact, can be seen as an unclear term that is so difficult to measure as to inculcate. Still, the author argues that there are several practical things that can be carried out to increase that commitment.

Culture and leadership

What the survey shows the Vickers referred to is that companies in which there is a higher percentage of workers involved are different from those where this percentage is lower in strategic areas that have actively promoted it. It also suggests that one of the best ways of strengthening it is to make sure that managers, including immediate supervisors are adequately trained in this area. In fact, a good relationship between employee and supervisor is seen as the main lever for which the worker agrees.

Still, most managers fail in this area. Less than a third (29%) of respondents to that survey said their officers were carrying out actions in this regard. 79% said their companies should. Only 15% agreed that their managers were well qualified to build commitment among its workforce.

Many leaders and managers must improve their skills. His lack of knowledge is a major barrier to get the employee's commitment. Therefore, companies should train their managers and make them responsible for actively apply their knowledge.

Interestingly, the highest levels of commitment are closely linked to good market performance (earnings growth, customer satisfaction, profitability ...)

Learning Culture

On the other hand, the article says, companies with more engaged employees rely on communities of practice drive or extending the powers of its employees. In short, they put emphasis on what can be termed "learning culture."

By contrast, organizations with lower levels of commitment does not take actions to avoid it, show ultimately passive. Moreover, when they have financial difficulties, many managers are tempted to overlook this issue for a second term.

It is true, on the other hand, stressful working conditions are an almost insurmountable barrier to generate commitment among workers. A third of respondents in the study referred Vickers said that such conditions inhibited to commit. These situations are not seen, however, as a major impediment in comparison with the fact that we mentioned before, ie, lack of skills (or interest) between management

Vickers argues, finally, that the commitment levels can be increased even in bad times, in which organizations can address and make the right decisions. A high level of commitment is linked to an improvement in customer service, improved productivity, is, in short, "healthy."

Virtual Business

virtual worlds like Second Life are a new medium with many opportunities to do business and make contact with customers, yet many companies still give back. The next five years virtual worlds will be essential to brand building of large companies. Classic business models do not work in this context, companies that want to position themselves must have a long-term strategy.


An article carried out by the consultancy Deloitte has concluded that virtual worlds like Second Life, normally associated with teenagers or Internet fans are growing in popularity very quickly and that their full potential has not yet been taken into account by most companies

These virtual worlds have created a new way for people to socialize, entertain and, of course, makes economic transactions. It is estimated that some 50 virtual worlds that have already signed up 178 million people. Second Life has been that has set in among the users. And despite that is still seen by many as merely a sophisticated way to play, the truth is that business is already being done and working in Second Life.



Companies such as Coca-Cola and Sears, have created virtual shops to test there products. The prestigious INSEAD business school has developed a virtual campus to replace classroom training. In short, more and more companies use these "parallel worlds" to enter in touch with your customers or to improve their internal operations.

However, the study warns that many companies exploring these new media can be quite daunting as its traditional approach is not sustainable in the long term. Because, although such self-organized communities can be potentially a very lucrative business, the classical models can not, under any circumstances, get all your party.

Innovate

We can say that there throw imagination and innovation.

"Virtual worlds present opportunities that businesses should know sooner or later," says Kamale Lardo, the report's author, said in a statement. "The inevitable changes that will bring virtual worlds will redefine the way companies interact with their customers and facilitate more sophisticated modes of interaction between organizations," he adds.

In the past year, many executives have had to make the decision to start your business career in places like Second Life, either for business, pure and simple, either to accompany a marketing strategy. It is not easy making this decision, says Deloitte, or measure their true potential. Perhaps this is why many of them were established with great media noise, have left too quickly, even seeing their number of subscribers increased steadily.

The study predicts, in any event, within five years, these worlds will begin to dominate and lead the brand building larger companies. This means that they are already positioned there will have some competitive advantage over those who take the decision to gamble in this way in the coming years.

Having a strategy

Expand the business into a virtual world is not without risks (many of them similar to what we find in the real world), especially with regard to brand and reputation.

The dramatic fall of the dot-com "in 90 should serve as example to know what to do and what not to explore this new medium. Virtual worlds have been created, also great excitement, a lot of hype and disappointments. Deloitte is time to enter a stage of maturity and productivity.

"Although the number of active visitors of virtual worlds has yet to reach critical mass, who explore and understand this context today will win the loyalty of its customers tomorrow," says Lardo. "To develop a strategy targeted at customers in this new environment, companies must first understand the marketplace and its users," he concludes.

Deloitte recommends that companies adopt a long-term strategy based on three phases. The first step would be to decide what is the reason to bet on this medium. At this point, the company has come to know well its technology foundation to keep abreast of new trends. It is also necessary that the strategic objectives of its implementation are based on measurable outcomes, such as the number of visits or appearances in the media.

The second phase, the report says, should be conducting a pilot project selected as the best option. In this case, the technological cost and risks are lower than those supporting a pilot project in the "real world."

Finally, after six months testing the operation of the pilot project, the company should make the decision whether to fully implement and continue operations, or not.

Online businesses also require a long-term

Perhaps the best way to approach the subject of the Supernova conference taking place in San Francisco on an annual basis, whether to consider the type of audience that, according to organizers, are addressed: technology executives, business strategists, entrepreneurs, investors daring, political, service providers and analysts, among others.

The main concept intended to discuss and explain, and around which try to integrate into the world of business, government institutions and technology leaders, is the decentralization caused by connectivity every day more and more global, pervasive and ubiquitous, that takes place through computers and other communication devices interconnected throughout the world.




Such phenomena are by collapsing the old industrial model and changing the world as we knew it, because businesses are distributed and shared more and the users acquire a major in the same never experienced before, using tools like blogs, recommendation services web page and cyber-connected networks.

Big numbers

In 2007, Americans bought over the network products and services worth U.S. $ 127,000 million, representing a 25% increase over the previous year, according to a recent article in Managing Technology accounts for some of the topics discussed at the last Supernova conference, held during days 16 to 18 June.

To be important, however, represents less than 4% of total retail sales in the U.S., although it should also have other online services: for example, Google admitted that last year more than 16,000 million dollars and most of them came from its advertising services.

What we have been discussing in the Supernova is that, despite the great potential of the Internet market, these figures reflect, very few companies have actually had success in developing new effective ways to make profits online. Most companies have seen on the net, at best, simply another means to insert in her traditional advertising models.

Explorers

Eric Clemons, professor of Wharton SchoolSaid that there are many sources of value and untapped business niches on the Internet, particularly in the area of online services. As a business model actually developed and operated online, as opposed to using the network as a means to implement the old models, described, among others, two examples: Gaia Online and Photoshop Express.

The first, Gaia Online is a virtual world created several years ago by a Japanese comic book artists. More than 300,000 daily users enter the same by participating in role-play multi-player, create their own avatars and interacting with each other through forums. About five million users, most of them teenagers and young adults, come every month to this page, which gives an idea of its success.

The developers began seeking small donations from users to keep the site active, and the answer was that they were three times more than they had anticipated. Then they came up with the idea of giving users the ability to buy (and sell) virtual products. Where does Gaia real incomes? To sell, the price is nothing virtual $ 2.5 each, limited editions of virtual goods have value for users to become old and start to dwindle. To this we must add also the sale of real and hats and shirts based on some of the most popular virtual items.

Then there is advertising, which has begun to experience Gaia for about year and a half, by original actions such as his association with New Line Cinema. Users of the virtual world of Gaia have to perform some activity of the same to get a trailer to a film promoted by this company. And this is, in the words of Executive Craig Sherman of Gaia Online, "to create experiences that are fun and meaningful to the Gaia community as well as beneficial to sponsors."

For its part, Adobe has long put up a different action by no less successful, made available to the public, and amateur photographer in particular, completely free of charge, a simplified, yet effective, its flagship product: the tool Professional Photoshop image processing. The popular version is called Photoshop Express offers users the ability to upload, edit, store and share their photos, as well as integrate with other services like Facebook, Photobucket or Picasa.

Do the benefits of all this to Adobe? Sales of premium and professional services in addition to potential customers from the mass public to its free services, advertising, and agreements whereby computer manufacturers buy licenses for the software components pre-installed Photoshop Express.

In line with these initiatives and this new vision of business online, include the intention of the company Sun Microsystems to continue releasing products (as they have been doing with Java or Solaris). During the Supernova conference, the company president, Jonathan Schwartz, was to present a world map showing which dots (increasing by 100,000 per day) the density of downloads ZFS, a file system released. Schwartz concluded: "Each of these points is a potential customer."

Innovate to compete

Gone are the years in which after a successful product, companies are assured years of success and leadership. Innovation became a basic variable, if not change, we perish.
Without doubt the technological advances made shorter the life cycle of products, and in this situation there are two options: we see as a major threat to the continuity of the company, or consider it a great opportunity to compete and grow by innovation.




In this context, the development process of new products becomes a competitive advantage for those who are well oriented. The companies with efficient innovation processes and are able to introduce new products geared to the wishes of customers in the shortest period of time, have an important advantage over its direct competitors. A short development cycle allows the company ahead of its competitors in the market, so that the speed of innovation is one of the basic skills for success or failure of new product or service.

You can not argue the fact that the company has to learn to live with the challenge of innovation. The key to successful innovation is not so much have the technology and the direction of the innovation process. The real advantage is that the company displayed its ability to distinguish signals from the environment to warn you about opportunities and threats, understand the changes and define a strategy.
The management of innovation, it becomes a management tool that leads to success in the field of business.

Quality as Strategy

What has been talking about quality? Undoubtedly much and for too long. Now, we as consumers, do you perceive?

Some companies have invested heavily in quality plans, so that their products comply with certain standards, very demanding indeed. Other processes have been considered and even have license to access the required companies.

Beyond good intentions, the mystery remains as "perceive that quality? Studies indicate that not perceived in its exact extent. I can assure you this is because these companies have put the focus on internal operations, neglecting the importance of the next step: the perceived value to the customer.

It's useless to invest in quality if our customers do not notice differences. To achieve this we must focus on the market and do better than our competitors in the relevant attributes evaluated by the consumer.

Easy to explain, but complex in implementation.

Companies that are able to understand the needs of your target market and to establish quality standards tailored to these needs, taking the lead over the competition, made it to the final stage, in which the quality and perceived value to become part of the corporate strategy. The important thing, based on a product or service quality, is to get the market noticing. Not enough to be, but must be sound.
The risk of error or delay decisions on this subject may generate a poor positioning of our brands, very difficult, and costly to reverse.
In business, perception is the only reality.

Flexible pricing

In the previous note Is it the best pricing strategy? , Addressed the topic "Pricing." I leave something I wrote in relation to the pricing issue.

Flexible pricing
Precios flexibles
If we talk about pricing strategies, it seems a fairly simple issue. Is it?
The pricing work focusing on the costs (the more common practice than you think), we realize that is not complex. The complexity is given by the good management of costs. Needless to say, that this methodology is far from ideal, since at no time is considered the consumer.

The current short life cycle of many products, makes an error in pricing becomes insurmountable.

Today it is common practice to work with a flexible pricing policy, but not in the strict sense of business manuals, where flexibility was given by the quantities purchased or geographic location. Today is flexible depending on the type of customer. It appeals to get the maximum benefit from each customer, as you are willing to pay. The drawback is given by the technological advances that led to a price transparency unimaginable years ago. If a company offers discounts to new customers, to expand its share, is almost certain that today's customers know and have generated some conflict.

This does not imply that we put aside the targeted pricing, but to apply it must be very cautious, examining not only the benefits but potential complications.
Tip: Do not take pricing strategies lightly. Do not imitate your competition and work only in terms of cost. Analyze your segments and positioning. Be creative.

MySpace beats Yahoo and online advertising

While the statistics provided by comScore highlights the rapid growth of MySpace, analysts say the social networking site has struggled to get ad rates and the highest possible price similar to Yahoo.

Yahoo! lost the top spot of advertising presence in the U.S. market at the hands of MySpace and companies to which it belongs, Fox Interactive Media for News Corp, according to new data reveal the industry.

The cluster of sites of Fox Interactive, led by MySpace, recorded 56.8 million advertising views in June compared to the Yahoo group sites, which totaled 53.1 million views, according to data released this week by the firm of Internet audience measurement comScore.



publicidad onlineBut while the statistic highlights the rapid growth of MySpace in terms of audience advertising, analysts say the social networking site has struggled to get ad rates to the highest possible price similar to Yahoo, famous for attracting major advertising rates.

"Social media gets all these ad impressions but not necessarily with the dollars," said Colin Gillis, analyst at Canaccord Adams. The cost per thousand (CPM) page views are significantly lower than that of Yahoo, said.

A MySpace executive said they are closing the gap with rivals such as Yahoo, AOL Time Warner and Microsoft Corp's MSN after the renovation of its home page in June, which has attracted sponsors like Sprite renowned and Wendy's.

"Our CPM has grown significantly," said Jeff Berman, president of sales and marketing at MySpace, on the surging growth in June. "Category by category, year after year, we grow in double digits," celebrated.

According to comScore data for advertising impressions, June was the first month that Fox Interactive beats Yahoo, whose views of advertising fell nearly 12 percent since May.

While it may be too early to conclude definitively that MySpace surpassed Yahoo, comScore data shows that Yahoo's stock on the market for displays has trended downward since July 2007.

Yahoo questioned comScore's measurement methodology.

"We believe that there may be problems with the measurement that could be distorting to Yahoo and we are reviewing comScore's methodology and working with them to solve these problems," said a statement by spokesman Adam Grossberg.

Pubs, Inns, Wi Fi and Stowaways

I approached an interesting note written by Mariano Pantenetti especially for the blog.



May have noticed (or suffered), at some point (usually urgent) when they needed to sit in a bar to do some urgent work, or enter your Wi Fi Notebook, which all seats were occupied, even those which whom used does not have any drink in front of him to justify the use of facilities, or otherwise, are on the table the remains of a lean to the clear coffee was drunk at the very least makes some long hours.

The dilemma of the stowaway is the enjoyment of public property by individuals who use them either on their part fair share as paid or avoiding the cost of their share.

Although the case arose in the first paragraph, we are clearly looking at a private good, use that gives the time over which provides the service seems to be analyzed from the perspective of the free rider problem.

The existence of stowaways leads inevitably to a loss of productivity, since many more individuals are "fed" a well thought originally to fewer participants.
It takes an excessive use of common property.

Trying to be Pareto efficient is that I consider as far as the comfort of who first occupied the chair does not conflict with the convenience of those who come second and (after a logical time) starts to pay the cost of discomfort.
Find another bar also has a cost for those who came second.
These costs, eventually moving to the owner of the establishment because the customer alerted of this situation will certainly look for an open bar, efficiently avoiding being the second.

Find a balance then represents a potential improvement in the outcome of any situation that arises as Pareto-efficient, where the improvement of one of the agent is not possible without harming the other. A situation that is optimal from the standpoint of utility.

Getting in the skin of who should manage a bar, restaurant or similar, ask to what extent it is efficient to give free will to decide who will occupy a table for a long period of time, so that others with the intention to consume are far from the place or simply do not enter.
Are these first considered stowaways?
It could be argued that the former may present long-term profitability (are customers of the house), while the latter only have occasional use and is difficult to quantify their income in perpetuity.

Some retailers like Havanna coffee seem to have realized this and delivered a limited service (in time) of Wi Fi, forcing the start following products for more time consuming or simply leave.
This does not limit the time of those who read all the newspaper, every magazine, they receive visits and make your office coffee, for the modest sum of about ten pesos in 6 hours.

On this situation, seem to have more experience that bars restaurants, experts often drive the customers to have on board.

I think this is a new consumer and a new way of delivering service, so I do not see a clear answer to the dilemma posed.
Therefore it seems best in this first instance to perform some testing activities, analyze, think about trying not to neglect the customer above all else. But which one? Which is two hours ago with your coffee and newspaper or waiting.

The differentiation is essential to escape the price war

When a person has a business idea because it senses that there is great potential in it often makes the mistake of wanting to copy the entire competition, to be near her to grab their customers and offer a lower price to enter and win them all .

This pathway probably leads to the competitor, in turn, lower theEstrategia de diferenciacions prices and this becomes a cycle, in a price war that ultimately led the two to charge the least for their products and not getting expected profits.

Columbia Ideas at Work Business School published an article on the studies currently performed by the business and economics professor at the university, Michael Riordan, using game theory to know how to react to business owners when new firms enter the market to compete .

Riordan sums it up this way: "The key issue is to design products to avoid direct competition, so that there is a substantial number of consumers in the market that are more or less indifferent between their product line and its competitor . Because if any, will be tempting to draw them through lower prices. "




Enter the market without causing a price war

Riordan says that if it is known to enter the market with a well differentiated product that is not interchangeable with the competition and, therefore, not so sensitive to price changes, it is likely that prices, rather than lower, increase because everyone will be getting the most out of your segment.

This may be clearer with the example mentioned in the article by Columbia Ideas at Work, under which an aspiring entrepreneur coffee business is a very crowded near a college where many people walk, and decides to open a coffee business the entire front, across the street.

The reaction of the old business is to reduce prices to fight for their customers, leading to the new employer also decrease, obtaining much lower profit margins than expected.

But the proposal discussed in the article is that if the new owner decides to enter differentiated, can open a tea shop looking to attract that segment of customers in the coffee shop they prefer the new product and that does not change from differences in the price, which would provide incentives to the former business owner to lower their prices, and, conversely, could lead to upload them to maximize earnings from coffee drinkers.

According to Riordan, "The profit-maximizing price of the establishment of coffee depends on the price charged by the establishment of tea, and vice versa" and it will be agreeing to stable prices.

Product differentiation strategies

According to these studies, before entering a market, there are three questions that must be considered in order to create a product differentiation strategy that maximizes profits:

1. Is there a customer segment that is not well served by existing firms? There are consumers of all kinds, some are willing to pay more for certain other products undecided driven by lower prices. If you can create a product with added value for those customers who are willing to pay more for it, you can capture some of that value through higher earnings.

2. How much difference should be within their own product line? Advanced segmentation creates value for customers because they feel they are offered something to measure, but be careful with the way in which this segmentation affects other products and the level of variety to another profitable.

3. How will existing firms respond to new business entry into the market? If many customers see the new product as a possible replacement of the former, the owner of the latter will lower prices. But to avoid this, you can segment the product so that customers prefer one or the other, regardless of price.

The key is to offer a unique product that meets specific consumer needs and have added value for which they are willing to pay, as this is what ensures the success and permanence of the product without relying on other bids.

In the words of Riordan "What makes the entrance, ideally, is to reorganize the consumer in the market, so that the new consumer segmentation among firms, they are less price sensitive."

The new world of marketing and advertising

If someone fell asleep during the last five years and suddenly woke up in 2010, it would quickly realize that the world of marketing and advertising has changed dramatically in three ways. Martin LindstromThe Neuro-Marketing expert, Explains what happened.



1. Communication and research and subliminal or subconscious part of the vocabulary of most marketers. Do not fall into the trap of believing that conventional research methods work. Over 80% of the daily decisions arise in the non-conscious brain. If we trust these numbers, and all studies show that we must, then 2010 is the year that marketers will be forced to find alternative research methods to discover the subconscious processes involved in making decisions.


2. The power has shifted from the brand to customers - even the most powerful brands know that successful campaigns must consistently catch the customers, which in turn will use their powerful ability to spread through word of mouth. " 2010 will also be the year that marketers will have to sacrifice your brand by the customer. What does this mean? It is increasingly common to see how the marks are destroyed by clients expressing their anger or frustration online. The value of the shares of Domino's Pizza dropped by 10% when two angry customers rose video to YouTube. How can large organizations, which rarely can turn something in a few hours, withstand such attacks? Brands have to find a way to do just that.


3. 2010 seems to be dominated by guilt. Guilt for spending money, blame for polluting the world, and finally, blame the parents as their children are locked in their world online, away from the traditional values ​​that were once the exclusive domain of families. This year, marketers must learn to take advantage of this guilt as never before. This is the sad reality. Buyology draft taught us that fear is one of the strongest elements in building a brand. Fear is closely associated with guilt, and in so far as the world turns faster and faster on itself, the blame is more and more power. The brands that can cause guilt - or, better still, eliminate guilt - will be the winners.

The CD is no longer business in Britain

The CD is no longer heard as before. At least that is happening in Britain, where the musicians get more revenue from internet and radio, recorded music sales. This was announced by the alliance MCPS-PRS, Which handles copyright in the music industry in the country.

The cold numbers show that during 2007 in the UK, the radio and Internet downloads for a profit totaled 707.5 million euros. According to the agency states in its websiteIn 2007 alone increased by 54% the turnover of the online downloads.

Radios and televisions, along with internet, contributed € 195.7 million, up 8% over 2006, with significant growth of online downloads, whose turnover increased by 54%, led by the iTunes platform. However, the MCPS-PRS said that revenue from Internet (€ 12.6 million) still remain a small weight in total of this group.

Physical products like CDs and DVDs, which had always been a major source of income for musicians in the country, contributed € 191.1 million last year 11% less than last year.

"Much has been written about the state of the music industry, but these results show the good health of the sector, an increase of revenue in most areas," said CEO of MCPS-PRS, Steve Porter.

The alliance said the sharp fall in CD sales was partly offset by the sale of other physical products such as USB drives with built-in songs.

Google's mobile phone is not multitouch, because Apple does not want

The main complaint from critics of the Android G1, the first mobile phone designed by Google, manufactured by HTC and distributed exclusively for the United States by the German T-Mobile, has already been answered: if this phone that wants to be the future is multi- touch, as if what is Apple's iPhone is only because the finder does not want to anger the company that runs Google Jobs.Estrategia Steve

It is considered multi-touch to any touchscreen phone that is able to process orders received from its sensors several fingers of the user ... at a time. That ability is what allows, for example, zoom in and zoom photos on an iPhone using the thumb and forefinger of one hand.

And no one understood well until now why Google had resigned to making your touch phone was also multi-touch. Now, a report in a specialized account how American's own brand of apple begged the Android development team that did not include this capability in the design of its new generation of mobile phones (which the G1 is just the first member .)

The main reasons why the giant gave information on the Internet without question appear to be two. First, both brands share the common goal to overthrow Microsoft. And second, that Apple is preparing a legal barrage against those who dare to use that technology in other devices.

Apple itself warned of the consequences in the final presentation of business results in a message that everyone understood that was directed at Palm, to use multi-touch technology in its new Intelligent Mobile Pre. "We will use every weapon at our disposal," said then one of its top officials.

Entrepreneurs: the absence of strategic partner

The entrepreneurial boom is undeniable. The socio-economic benefits Socio estrategicotoo.

No doubt the business is growing strongly and a long road ahead. But as there is growth, there is much to learn and improve.

One of the common weaknesses I find in several of the projects is the absence of a "strategic partner." I do not know if the term reflects exactly what I mean, but it's better than I thought (if I find one that surpasses it, I assure you that I modified).

In general, in these enterprises, technical feasibility is outdated. Those who develop are often specialists in the technical part of the product. Neither frequent the problems in the legal viability. With regard to economic viability, there begin to be the first obstacles, due to lack of financial evaluation tools and the difficulty of demonstrating the profitability of the business. Many times this stumbling block is saved, according to the skill and flair of the potential investor.

Is where I see serious difficulties in project management. It is necessary to set the strategist, you can view and manage the implementation of business strategies. Undoubtedly, this figure would solve also the failures in respect to what was mentioned about the economic viability.

Think of how many good ideas do not advance because of lack of management capacity, either in search of investors and in its implementation.

Those who plan to take up and not ready for enterprise management, should consider seriously the possibility of hiring, or associate, Business Management specialists.