Editor’s Note: Ganesh Rajagopalan is a seasoned management consultant and former investment banker. He is also a leading author on Flevy, having published numerous business frameworks on topics such as Strategy Development, Investment Analysis, and Value Chain Analysis. You can view all his materials here. * * * * Most would be familiar with the term […]
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The 21st Century Small Business
Here at Forward View, we spend a lot of time asking ourselves, “What’s next?” and “How can small businesses succeed in the coming months and years?” We use these thought exercises to develop The Forward View, and these insights impact all of our consulting projects and research reports. Our efforts to peer into the crystal […]
A New Approach to Business-Model Innovation
Of course you know business model innovation. It’s common practice among innovators. A lot of markets have been disrupted by new business models, often initiated by start-ups and new entrants: Airbnb disrupts the market for accommodation as you can rent online unique places to stay from local hosts in 190+ countries. In 2014, Airbnb had 25 million guests’ bookings. […]
Environmental Consulting as a Revenue Line for Professional Services Firms
This is a very big industry that is becoming more main stream. The industry consolidation bandwagon is starting, so like the Gartner Hype Cycle predicts, its only a matter of time before there is wholesale buy-ups of niche Environmental Consulting firms by the broader based players. The USA market is the worlds largest, with spend on Environmental Consulting already at $11.7 Billion. […]
Joint Ventures to Grow Revenues, Reduce Costs, and Mitigate Risk
A joint-venture is a business agreement between two (or more) parties to create a new entity, with new assets, resources and management control. The goal of the new entity is the same one as all other business endeavors: to grow revenues and/or reduce costs and/or mitigate risk. The term “joint-venture” (JV) is understood quite differently […]
Tips to Achieve an Innovative and Differentiated Startup Project
Editor’s Note: This is the era of rapid changes and disruptive innovations, and no startup, irrespective of size or industry, should be launched without a high degree of innovation and differentiation. This article is about the why, what, and the how— the systematic way to achieve this, based on the long international experience of the […]
The Evolution of Business Consulting
Professional services firms are undergoing a profound transformation. The markets are changing and the old ways of doing business are becoming obsolete. Customers paying for professional services are becoming more sophisticated and more discerning. Why are we still doing business as usual when the world around us is in such extreme flux? The professional services […]
Optimized Marketing: Why You Should Align Brand Segmentation to Activation & Reporting
With high volumes of data created across multiple marketing channels, brands are challenged to organize and active the right data assets to maximize cross-channel performance. To better understand your target audience, drive more sales, and reduce marketing waste, you need to align your brand segmentation with digital activation and reporting. You must align the why they purchase with […]
Strategic Sustainability, ROI, and Corporate Branding
Previously, I wrote a post about how companies can use social marketing to distribute content and tell their brand story to the target market. I discussed how many companies are using social media to highlight their sustainability programs and the ways they improve communities. However, many remain skeptical of storytelling as a marketing tool, and even sustainability programs […]
Voice of the Customer: Internal and External
We should all listen to the Voice of the Customer (VoC) in this customer centric market to improve our business operations. VoC isn’t just for your valued external customers, but also your valued internal customers, your employees or associates. What is more important than listening to your customer? Without customers there is no operation or […]
How to Improve Customer Experience
Before we get to how to improve customer experience, let’s just recap on why we should care about improving the customer experience. Deloitte said that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than their less customer-centric counterparts. That’s right, 60% more profitable. And that’s not just one of those throw-away marketing stats. It’s from Deloitte, one of […]
Teach Strategic Thinking with These 3 Simple Questions
When the Big Strategic Idea someone pitches you is blatantly boneheaded and un-strategic, you might remind yourself that strategic thinkers are made, not born. If this person is your friend or subordinate, then maybe it’s your job to help them learn the skill called “strategic thinking.” These three simple questions will get you off to […]
