The Three Ds That Can Save Your Business

Where can I find organic growth and beat my competitors? At its essence, that’s the question that drives every business. It’s not an easy question to answer, especially given how complicated things are (Big Data, large global organizations, fast-changing customer behaviors, disruptive technologies). And throw into the mix the anemic growth plaguing many economies in the world today.

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We have a point of view on this (you can read the full white paper I co-authored: Discover, Design, Deliver: 3D Marketing & Sales for Above-Market Growth) and it comes down to building and linking up your three “Ds”:

1. Discovery: Building a data advantage by pulling in relevant data sets, analyzing the data at high speed, turning it into relevant business insights, and then delivering those insights to the decision makers so they can take meaningful action. The discovery needs to be based on a thorough understanding of today’s customer decision journey, and uncover segments whose journey you can reshape. Only 30 percent of companies believe they understand their customers’ needs and have a clear sense of where growth will come from.

2. Design: Creating business strategies, processes, pricing programs, products, and experiences that the brand delivers to customers. Design strategists start with learning what customers care about, how they truly behave, what their needs are, and what influences them. Fed by a continuing stream of insights, strategists in business units rapidly learn what is and is not working, innovate new solutions, assess their economics and feasibility, and then work with the frontline on implementation.

3. Delivery: Getting the right offering to each customer across a complex range of online and offline channels. Orchestrating the tailored delivery of products and offers across marketing and sales channels requires operational excellence and organizational agility

Linking them together is the critical component here. It’s not enough to have a great analytics team if their insights never make it to the front lines. And it doesn’t matter if your sales organization is out of this world if they trying to sell products that customers just don’t want. That breakdown was obvious in a survey we did recently. Almost 50 percent of companies said their customer database doesn’t help them make decisions. In addition, fewer than 20 percent said that the way they capture insights contributes directly to sales effectiveness.

As companies build capabilities in specific areas, they also need to have an eye towards how to fine-tune the entire organization to take advantage of those capabilities. It’s a little like when coach Herb Brooks chose the US ice hockey team for the 1980 Olympics. He didn’t select the best players; he chose the best players who played best together. The result was the “Miracle on Ice,” when the US team beat its Soviet archrivals and went on to win the gold medal.

This 3D model places equal emphasis on individual and team excellence. Companies need that kind of double strength if they want to beat their competitors.

So, what is holding back your organization from being 3D?

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Author / INFLUENCER: David Edelman

Don't Just Be an Entrepreneur - Be a Market Maker

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What do Tesla, Whole Foods Market and Taproot Foundation have in common? They are market movers. They didn't just set up to build a product or service. They set out to build or disrupt a market.

Wildly successful companies and nonprofits don't just focus on building a product or service. They look at the market outside their organizations and actively invest in changing the market so that their products and services have substantially greater opportunities to generate revenue and make an impact in the world.

Tesla Drives the Electric Car Market

Elon Musk didn't set out to build an electric car, he wanted to build a market for electric cars, beginning with luxuryars, and then expanding over time to reach a broader consumer base. This was a rather specific vision; that is, it wasn’t simply about building an amazing electric car, it was also about creating an environment in which it could be successful.

Tesla identified their innovator customer segment and focused their energies on selling and servicing them in unique ways. Five years after the introduction of its Model S car, Tesla was reporting a profit, and the Model S had become the third best-selling luxury car in California, behind only the Mercedes E Class and BMW 5 Series. 
To grow beyond luxury cars and California, however, they need to remove barriers for their competitors so they can join them in moving away from gas-fueled cars. To this end, Tesla now sells their patented powertrain components to competitors. They are less concerned about the competition taking up market share than building the market and creating scale that will bring the prices down enough to be viable options for the average car buyer. Learn More.
 
Whole Foods Takes Healthy to Mainstream


It wasn't long ago that the sustainable consumer products market was mostly operating on the fringes of society. In those early days, the market was more a movement supported by a tiny portion of the population — innovators shopping at and running small health food stores. These stores smelled like vitamins, and the organic produce sold on their shelves looked sickly. It required dedication to shop in them.



By 2012, Whole Foods Markets had 340 stores and 2,400 natural and organic products on their shelves, selling over $12 billion and employing nearly 75,000 people. They had come a long way from the health food stores before them.
The impact of Whole Foods Market, however, is much greater. Similar to Tesla, despite a small market share, it has changed the overall market. It has cultivated the early adopters and turned them into tastemakers that are making the early majority pay attention. As of 2013, 63 percent of Americans reported buying organic foods, and 40 percent planned to increase their purchases of organic in the coming year. Learn more.



Taproot Foundation Catalyzes Pro Bono Marketplace

Despite the incredible need for marketing, technology, management and strategic consulting services most nonprofits in 2001 didn't trust using pro bono services. They had been burned too many times by well-intentioned volunteers. “You get what you pay for,” they shared over and over again. To them, they smelled as bad as a 1975 health food store (well intentioned but undesirable).

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Author: AARON HURST