Tag Archives: Strategic management

January 22, 2014 · 11:36 am

Benchmarks

There is a scene in the movie “Caddyshack” in which two of the characters are having a chat after golf:

Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?
Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don’t keep score.
Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?
Ty Webb: By height.

I know – I do manage to find ways to get golf references into the screed a lot.

Charts

(Photo credit: GrapeCity)

However, what you just read is an example of benchmarking – measuring your performance or a business unit’s performance against a standard.  It’s something we all do.  Clients ask if their email open rates are good or if their site’s bounce rate is higher than others I’ve seen.  Most of the time a company tries to identify standards that come out of best practices and benchmark themselves against them.  Sometimes even entire industries (usually through a trade association or some other third-party) will anonymously aggregate the results  across the industry to help the members figure out if their results are on par with the industry as a whole.

We see the benchmarks all the time in financial results.  ARPU in the wireless industry, for example, is a very public benchmark; percent subscriber growth is one in the cable industry.  I find them helpful but am probably not as fixated on them as a lot of other people.  Here is why.

In my consulting experience I’ve found very few businesses that align exactly.  Sure, many of the folks with whom I work face the same general challenges, but asking, for example, if a bounce rate is high if it ignores the purpose of your page or site vs. what others are trying to do. Where I have a bigger issue with benchmarks is when companies use them to judge other companies (or other people!).  Those sorts of comparisons get our eyes off our own goals.  By comparing and judging, we’re implying that every business is on the same journey (or that every person is as well).  We can’t know for sure what those journeys involve.

Benchmarks are like many other business tools.  In the right hands and using the right perspective they can be very useful.  The again, some companies do what Ty did in the example – he’s a tall guy, let’s measure results by height!  Used without context or skewed to a purpose or to pass absolute judgement, they’re dangerous.  That’s my take – what’s yours?

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January 17, 2014 · 11:06 am

The Stuff On The Bottom

Let’s end the week with some Foodie Friday Fond Fun.

English: Fond left in a white enamel pot after...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is fond, you ask? A food scientist would tell you it’s the residue on the bottom of the pan left over when you sauté meats or vegetables. It’s the browned stuff that forms from either caramelization of sugars or from something called the Maillard Reaction. I’d tell you it’s yummy goodness.

Every good cook knows that you never toss this stuff.  It’s the base for most good pan sauces and at a minimum you want to use it in whatever else you’re going to be doing with what you cooked to create the reside in the first place.  The addition of a little wine or stock or even water will release the fond and that process is called deglazing.  You can then use the resulting liquid either to make a sauce (add butter and seasonings) or as the base for anything from gravy to soup.  Whatever you do, you never want to discard it

That principle applies to business as well.  There are a number of very successful companies that are built on the residue of other business activities.  Think about how many times you read about “unsuccessful” brands being sold off or failing businesses being bought to be turned around, reinvigorated, or repositioned to yield better results.  Those things are the fond of business and private equity firms have learned to deglaze those opportunities into excellent profits.

We do that to people too sometimes.  An employee is not producing as they once did or maybe a smart person with excellent skills is burned out.  Rather than discarding them we should be thinking about what we can add – the deglazing liquid – to bring them back to life and transform them into a more productive, happier person.  Maybe it’s a role change or maybe it’s a different sort of challenge.  Like fond, discarding them is a waste of something that can be quite good.

The next time you cook something in a pan, think about how the stuff on the bottom of the pan will be used.  When you get the chance, you might give some thought to recognizing and using it in the office as well.  Yum!

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January 13, 2014 · 9:31 am

Swimming And Synchronizing

There were a number of interesting things to come out of last week’s CES. Curved TV’s, self-driving cars, and stun-guns built into your phone case are a few of the more notable ones and there’s been quite a bit of press on many others.

English: New company logo.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of those interesting things, however, don’t offer up opportunities for new businesses. One thing does in my mind, however, and that is the data coming out of a study conducted jointly by the folks that run CES – the Consumer electronics Association – and the National Association of Television Program Executives.  They conducted a study of consumers last October about how those consumers were using second screens to engage with video content.  What they found is the sound of opportunity knocking:

Of the Second Screen users surveyed, 79 percent access a second device while watching TV programming. Nearly all Second Screen viewers access asynchronous program content, either right before watching a show, right after watching, or between episodes/seasons, which offers a strong opportunity for program brands to increase loyalty and keep viewers engaged and watching even when shows are not on the air.

Only 42 percent of Second Screen users have tried synchronizing their content experience to live TV. According to the survey, synchronized content available for TV programs does not generate strong positive perceptions – only 13 percent of respondents said it makes their program viewing experience “much more enjoyable.” The majority of users said synchronized content makes their viewing experience “somewhat more enjoyable,” considering it less of a necessity than a “nice to have” for certain types of programs. More than half of those who access synchronous Second Screen content do so during commercials, so there is an opportunity to provide synchronized content that can be easily and quickly accessed during commercial air time.

In other words, many of us (actually MOST of us) are using some sort of second screen device but in general we’re not using that screen to enhance our viewing experience and no one has yet cracked the code on engaging viewers across multiple screens and devices.  For example – why wouldn’t a cooking show push out the recipe being made at the moment along with definitions of terms with which viewers may be unfamiliar, places to buy hard to find ingredients (maybe at a discount – partnership opportunity!) and links to other recipes that go along with what’s being made?  I’m aware all of those things can be done through the web site, but this is more about content providers being proactive and not the viewer having to do all the work.

What I especially like about this study is that it reminds all business folks that the ubiquity of mobile devices and tablets has changed pretty much everything.  If something as familiar as watching TV has been disrupted, what’s the effect been in your business and, more importantly, how can you use that change to your advantage?  How well we sink or swim as business people depends on the answer.

We’re starting to see more of this sort of activity. There is live, in-show voting on a number of programs and a number of sports applications try to integrate themselves with what’s going on in-game.  But as the study shows synchronizing program content with second screen content  is really a large opportunity over the next few years.  Someone (or multiple businesses) is going to crack the code, write the app, and swim very well.  You?

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