- The Impact Of Corporate Social Responsbility - From Creating Customer Goodwill To Influencing Social StandardsDecember 3
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CSR is still not a mainstream thing and there isn’t any standard definition. People still wonder the economic logic behind it, is there a positive correlation between economical performance and CSR or social standards can be a sustainable basis for the diffusion of the latter. But, very often, social standards have a positive impact on the profit only in the long term and only in a very diffuse way. For a wide range of social standards it is almost impossible to maintain that their implementation has a direct positive impact on the profit of large corporations.
Although it might be difficult to establish a clear correlation between the implementation of social standards and profit making, corporations could aim at raising their reputation by implementing social standards, in order to possibly gain profits - or at least not to make losses- from this reputation, at a later point in time.
Let’s be clear there are 2 types of CSR. CSR as marketing tool (BP) and CSR as part of a business strategy (Patagonia). BP’s marketing campaign, which is all about looking for alternative energy sources, makes the c
- Who Is Going To Save 'Classified' ? What's The Next Big Thing After Craiglist?December 2
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I have never seen in an election and Olympic year advertising revenue actually declined. I think we will be expecting a 8-9% reduction (excluding digital) through out 08. The biggest threat to newspaper is ‘classified ads.’ Barclays Capital forecasting that “classified ads as a percentage of newspapers’ revenue will decline to 26% next year from 36% in 06. Meanwhile, newspapers’ share of total U.S. ad spends…will have declined to 10% next year from 20% ten years ago. I think we can expect to see it reduced to 5% in 5 years. This is really hurting newspaper publishers and don’t expect many of them can survive the next 12 months.
While newspapers are in a panic mode and laying off half their people in order to stay afloat (like those 75 at LA Times) and magazines like Radar and CosmoGirl! are closing left and right, The Huffington Post is doing just fine. For a start, it helps to have a bunch of writers who really put the free in freelance. According to their CEO, "we don't have enough people on the payroll to do layoff," in case you were wondering.
In fact, they took $25 million in new fu
- Thinking About Getting Rid Of Your HR Department? It's About Time To Seriously Rethink The Role Of HR.December 1
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Human Resources was once a professional practice. Some how something happened and it is not what it was supposed to be. Instead of becoming a business partner of the CEOs and CFOs, they have become irrelevant. When I read about conferences around “strategic HR leadership”, I find it funny. HR today are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders. Here ‘s the conference’s mission:
‘By attending Strategic HR Leadership Summit, HR professionals from across the U.S. will discover the inside secrets of America's best performing and most highly valued human resources professionals. They'll learn how to maximize HR's strategic value within an organization, transforming it from an administrative function to a dynamic, bottom-line-enhancing business asset.’
Their focus has shifted to paper pushing (benefits), making a big deal out of annual performance reveal (which is a waste of time) and benchmarking salary and benefits (which should be automated). They often sit in a detached place where they are neither involved in the day-to-day issues of employees not strategic decisions on the executive level. I think we need to seriously rethink the value and existence of such a function.
- Failing To Win Or Winning To Fail? Apple's Persistent Effort To Push The Boundaries Of Value Creation In An IndustryNovember 28
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On the flight back from London I was reading the latest Fortune magazine’s story on Apple. There is only one Steve Jobs and in the future these shoes will be very difficult to fill. Apple is no question the most innovative companies of the last decades and the story on of the lessons from Apple is to "fail wisely". The Macintosh was born from the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a response to the failure of Apple's original music phone, produced in conjunction with Motorola. Both times, Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again. Its recent computers have been based on technology developed at NeXT, a company Jobs set up in the 80s that didn’t get anywhere. The wider lesson is not to stigmatize failure but to tolerate it and learn from it.
The funny thing is Apple was failing with their strategy early 90’s and they were winning in the 04’s with the same strategy? They wanted to copy HP's strategy in the 90’s. Apple struggled to expand the Mac market in 92 by broadening out into new retail outlets, including Sears, with a new, low-end Performa line. This ef
- In The Current Business Climate, There's Simply No Rule Book. Even Long Proven Corporate Strategy Practices Needs Lots Of RethinkingNovember 26
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This trip to London is a good one both business and personal. On the business front, we’ve accomplished a lot including helping our client to work on the core elements of their strategy beyond just marketing a new product. It is important to put a corporate strategy view to a marketing strategy so we have a comprehensive plan. On the personal front, I went to see my niece’s daughter’s ballet lesson and took a lot of pictures. She's adorable. Hmm.... there may be strategy lessons we can learn from ballet.
There’s always a lot of myth around corporate strategy. I must admit I’d only started truly master the art of corporate strategy 10 years after B-schools. The word “strategy” gets thrown around a lot. A true corporate strategist needs to understand industry and product level competitive dynamics, financial market behavior and the understanding of how “value” is being created. It is not these practices are without flaws; there is often a lack of empathy and fail to identify unmet needs that could means leaving a lot of money on the table.
Many companies strategies pretty much look lik
