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Competition

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Monitoring your industry

By Erica Olsen ⋅ August 27, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

An industry is a group of companies that sell products or services that are close substitutes of each other, such as the furniture industry,the car industry, or the financial services industry. Knowing the type of industry you’re competing in helps you predict changes, movements, or shifts that may impact your business. It’s also helpful to […]

Growing up (and down)

By Erica Olsen ⋅ July 6, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Another potential way to grow is through vertical integration - moving up and down your supply chain. You can integrate forward by setting up operations closer to your customer, such as a clothing company opening up retail stores. Or you can integrate backward, moving closer to your raw material source such as the clothing company […]

Duking it out with your competitors

By Erica Olsen ⋅ June 25, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

The rivalry or intensity at which you compete against your competition can move and change over time as the dynamics of the industry change. Competitive rivalry is an opportunity or a threat depending on how you handle it.
Do you recognize the intensity of the competition and are positioning yourself accordingly? Or are you feeling the […]

Developing your own rules

By Erica Olsen ⋅ May 27, 2007 ⋅ One comment

In my work, clients often ask for a tried and true method to evaluate all the strategic choices that are in front of them. Unfortunately, in my experience, I haven’t found such a fail-safe method. What does work is establishing a set of parameters or rules that are specific and unique to your operating environment. […]

AOL’s advantage: Make it personal

By Erica Olsen ⋅ April 6, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Remember back in the early 1990’s when Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were springing up everywhere? If you bought a computer from a major manufacturer in those early days of Windows, odds were that you also got up to three separate trial ISP accounts preloaded on your computer at the factory. I got CompuServe, Prodigy, and […]

Benchmarking your place in the pack

By Erica Olsen ⋅ March 26, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Benchmarks are surveys and assessments that help determine how well your company performs compared to other companies in your industry or business size. Below are just a handful of benchmarking tools available:
BizStats: Visit www.bizstats.com for instant access to useful financial ratios, business statistics, and benchmarks. Biz Stats has effective and understandable analysis of businesses and […]

Identifying Next Actions

By Erica Olsen ⋅ March 20, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

If you’ve been paying attention the past few weeks on our way to making strategy a habit, you’ll know that we’ve 1) gotten ready for the strategic planning process, 2) articulated your mission and vision, 3) reviewed your strategic position, 4) agreed on priorities and 5) organized the plan. And if you’re just joining us, […]

The 30-second competitive advantage challenge

By Erica Olsen ⋅ March 7, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Here’s a 30-second test to determine if you know your competitive advantage. A test already? I know; you feel like you’re in school again, don’t you? Don’t worry - it won’t hurt. Ready?
I meet you at a local networking event and you introduce yourself.
"Hi, I’m Bob Jones with ABC Company."
"Hi Bob. Nice to meet you. […]

Leading Successful, Sustainable Change

By Erica Olsen ⋅ November 14, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Blog post by Skip Reardon
http://sixdisciplines.blogspot.com/2006/10/leading-successful-sustainable-change.html
Many change efforts within organizations are declared failures and abandoned before they are given a chance to succeed.
Most
major change initiatives fall far short of the goals and expectations
set for them. Here are seven steps that make the critical difference to
make change succeed and last.
1. Create a sense of urgency.
For an organization […]

Monopolies, Mooselopolies

By Erica Olsen ⋅ January 24, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Randall Tobias, then the newly-appointment vice chairman at AT&T just as it was being broken up, had this to say about monopolies:
"In the regulated days, Bell system employees—myself included—genuinely believed they were doing the best they could and acting in the best interests of customers,” he says. “But when we got out there [in a […]