The loss was set in motion years ago. Still, it was hard to see my favorite airline, Midwest Express, lose the last vestige of its identity today, its name. It’s recent acquirer, Republic Airlines, also owns Frontier airlines. Republic wisely decided it could not afford to invest in two brands and Frontier better defines the [...]

The 2008-2009 economic recession changed customer and business behaviors, not unlike how a hurricane reshapes the built and natural environment. If you are not incorporating recession-induced changes into your business model strategy, your market position will weaken. The Recession Has Changed Consumer Behavior – Forever A recent in-depth study of consumer attitudes and behaviors by [...]

The technology sector is rapidly moving from companies competing as technology specialists to vertically integrated companies competing on solutions. HP acquires EDS and (pending) 3Com Corp. Dell quickly follows with acquisition of Perot Systems. Oracle buys Sun Microsystems (beating out IBM by 10 cents a share). Even Apple, the original vertically integrated company, is deepening [...]

If you need a differentiated, superior value promise to win customers’ votes, how do you know when your value promise is no longer working and business model innovation is called for? Make sure you measure repeat purchases, your consideration rates and your win rates. Discover where you’re losing business and why you’re losing business, as [...]

In November of 2008, Business Week magazine reported that Apple’s cash on hand exceeded Dell’s total market valuation. These two statistics explain how it happened – Apple net profit margin = Dell’s net profit margin plus 10 percentage points Apple operating margin = Dell’s operating margin plus 13 percentage points There is a vital lesson [...]

It’s gotten harder and harder to succeed in business for a long list of reasons that, like gravity, pull leaders into a short-term focus. Our planning deceives us into thinking we’re being strategic when in reality we’re just working at different degrees of tactical. The end result is that we’re too often operationally terrific and [...]