A new client asked me a good question today. “You talk Kay about helping us find our value promise, but my communications agency is totally focused on our brand platform. What’s what and why does it matter?”
The answer rests in understanding communication challenges.
The internal communication challenge
Employees need a shared and actionable aim that [...]

Susan Boyle, a 47 year-old unemployed woman appeared as anything but a leading candidate for British Idol success. (Blockbuster American Idol and its British spin off are talent shows for amateur singing talents.) Prior to her appearance, Boyle had spent her adult life caring for aging parents in a small Scottish town. No wonder the [...]

Milk is bad for children’s bones. Superman became a serial murderer.
Shocking, yes? But no less shocking than Toyota, the world-class manufacturing quality expert, recalling millions of cars across its product lines. Three generations after its founder created Toyota on a philosophy that built quality into every step, it turns out that Toyota’s quality has [...]

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 Context-Based [...]

The President’s current political, foreign policy and domestic issues remind me of running a business in challenging times.
Never forget about customer experience and how markets change.
Our economy totally tanked. Yet the Obama administration and Congress marched forward into health care as if nothing was really different. A more moderate approach to health care [...]

My CEO client sent the following e-mail to his leadership team last week to prepare for this week’s retreat that I’ll lead. His e-mail is an example of terrific business model innovation leadership.
We will make mistakes as we go through this planning –this week and [...]

“You’ll find the style you want at the optometrist store on State Street,” my most stylish girlfriend advised. Sure enough, I walked into rack after rack of brands and styles upon entering the shop. While the amount of choice was reassuring at first glance – surely there is a look here for me – I [...]

Best wishes for a joyous holiday. Here are the top trends I expect will shape our business models in 2010 and beyond and what leaders must do to address them.

Downward pressure on prices in a copycat, increasingly global economy will magnify and become relentless. Before you spend more money pulling costs our of your [...]

Today we have a guest post from Steve Paskoff, CEO of ELI.

Today is my birthday, so I have asked my client Steve Paskoff, CEO of ELI, Inc. to share some of his wisdom about the importance of leadership behavior in creating a winning business model. ELI offers its clients a foundational learning platform (training products, [...]

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 [...]