Know your customers

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin You know what I miss? I miss equalizers on stereos. For all you millennials out there, there used to be a set of six, 10 or sometimes even more levers that allowed you to make adjustments to the sound quality of the music you were listening to, sometimes in very subtle intervals. You couldn’t change the recording itself, but you could, say, turn up the bass. Basically, you could take a mass-produced album and customize it so that it worked better for you. Man, I loved that. But I’m not here simply to wax nostalgic about old records and old ways of doing things. Regular readers of this column know that I’m a firm believer in the power of technology and how it’s (mostly) improved the way we live our lives and interact with friends and colleagues — and, yes, build, manage and analyze investment portfolios. As I wrote in my last column , advances in technology have had a major effect on the construction of indexes, which are … [Read more...] about Hold On. You’re Saying You Can Customize An Index?

- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (May 17): Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (PetChem) is acquiring the entire equity interest in leading specialty chemicals group Perstorp Holding AB from Financière Forêt SARL for a base purchase of €1.538 billion (approximately RM7.018 billion) cash. The acquisition marks the creation of a significant specialty chemicals portfolio, while enhancing its overall earnings, said PetChem, which together with its wholly-owned unit Petronas Chemicals International BV (PCIBV), had entered into a conditional securities purchase agreement with the seller for the proposed acquisition. The Perstorp group currently derives more than 80% of its revenue from the 18 preferred chemical segments identified by PetChem, including surfactants, specialty polymers, specialty films, plastic additives, coatings, preservatives and biocides, and pre/pro biotics. Perstorp has also developed a number of solutions such as the game-changing production of sustainable methanol … [Read more...] about PetChem buys Swedish specialty chemicals group Perstorp for €1.5b

(CNN) The baby formula manufacturer at the heart of a nationwide formula recall said Monday that it has reached an agreement with the US Food and Drug Administration to enter into a consent decree, a legally binding agreement that would require the company to take certain steps in response to violations found at its Sturgis, Michigan, facility. If a court approves the agreement, the company says , it could restart the site within two weeks. It would first resume the production of its specialty metabolic formulas EleCare and Alimentum, followed by Similac and other formulas. After Abbott restarts the site, it will take six to eight weeks for the products to reach store shelves, it said. The Justice Department said Monday that it had filed the proposed consent decree in federal court. These families buy about half of infant formula nationwide. Here's how the Biden administration is trying to help them Abbott said it … [Read more...] about Abbott agrees to consent decree with FDA, could restart plant within 2 weeks, pending court approval

I've been in the business of coaching companies for a few decades, but only recently did I get into the business of research. Management ideas are nice ideas, but they're just that. If you want to prove what actually drives financial results--and if you care about improving the lives of the employees who drive those results--you need applied research. My friends at Harvard Business School have been telling me this for a while, so I talked them into helping me test the validity of a management approach we call economic engagement. It's all about partnering with employees to profitably serve customers. We defined precisely what we meant by economic engagement, codifying it in five management practices. Three years into the research, we shared the initial compelling results in these pages (more details are provided in the book I wrote with John Case-- Partners on the Payroll ). While I'm a die-hard fan of this approach (and growing more fanatical as the research continues … [Read more...] about What’s Missing in the Agile Approach

Two of the most interesting post-pandemic issues for the entrepreneurs running venture-backed businesses -- which have basically been on an involuntary hold for the last year or two -- are pace and story, and the conflicting attitudes toward each in the board room. Both are already topics of painful and somewhat heated discussions in meetings everywhere, pitting the impatient VCs against management teams. The VCs are all about IRR. Every investment they make is "on the clock" and their investors are always watching, waiting and wondering about how quickly and how much a given fund will return. They're all in for pushing the pace of everything forward as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the far more conservative and cautious management teams are still somewhat traumatized and only now starting to recover from the shock of seeing their businesses abruptly shut down. These managers are also realizing that their years of pain, sacrifice and stress were almost lost forever. In a … [Read more...] about The New War Between VCs and Entrepreneurs

Many companies across the country have returned to work, while others plan to remain remote for the foreseeable future. Shifting workplace dynamics in a pandemic has led many leaders to question what employee engagement looks like in the here and now. But one fact remains constant: Employee engagement is about establishing a goal and purpose for those you lead. It's almost impossible to keep employees dedicated to their work without a larger purpose. So, how do you rally your team around a shared goal in our current circumstances? And does that goal have to be lofty to engage your staff? Four leaders share their perspectives below. 1. Focus on impact. According to Jason VandeBoom, CEO of ActiveCampaign , the leader in customer experience automation (CXA), leaders must rally employees around a purpose beyond just money. His company has put the impact on customers front and center for employees. A focus on customers, or the clients a company is … [Read more...] about 4 Leadership Practices That Will Help You Perform Even Better

A long time ago a very wise old man said, "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care." The ability to consistently demonstrate this type of paramount "personal" and emotional concern to others (about whatever the current issue or matter under discussion may be) is an essential ingredient in the make-up of any successful politician (or husband). We absolutely prefer sweet, "sincere" and maybe even somewhat stupid leaders (like Uncle Joe) to serene and severe smarty pants (like President O). If we know in our hearts that someone doesn't care a fig for us common folk and, basically, would just as soon not dirty their hands dealing with our pedestrian problems but instead obsess over grandiose thoughts and big dreams, then we (as voters, or as consumers) act accordingly: by withholding our approval, our support and, most importantly, our commitment. This isn’t just true in politics. Managing emotionally-charged interactions and exchanges (where, as often as … [Read more...] about Why Social Media Is All About the Scorpion, Not the Frog

Quantity, not quality, rules social media. We all know that, but we don’t think hard about what it means. But if you’re advertising on a web site, and its primary traffic drivers are hacks, tricks and clever pet pix, what are its visitors really worth? Even assuming that those visitors are people and not tracking robots? I’d argue that they’re not worth your time and certainly not worth your money. Instead of attracting people who might be interested in your products or services and also highly influential, you can end up spending money to attract mobs of easily-influenced people who probably couldn’t explain how they got to a given website if they were asked. Groupon is the classic example of what happens when a company buys into tonnage rather than quality. It’s not good for Groupon, and it’s not good for the businesses that provide Groupon with its deals. As a business, you have to be very careful about doing a deal with Groupon: The deal needs to … [Read more...] about The Trouble With Social Media

If you have been blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit, then you are no stranger to hard work or commitment. But a great idea and a strong work ethic alone are not sufficient to grow your business. Today your customers have virtually unlimited options that are only a click away, so competing on price alone will not be enough to fuel growth. In fact, the historically tried and true four P's of marketing (Product, Price, Place & Promotion) are all being challenged by a simple winning formula--add value first. What is your gift to the world? What is the one thing your company is willing to give away that both provides value to your customers and illustrates your company's value? If you're Google, that would include everything from Android (its mobile phone operating system) to Gmail. Google's market cap is almost $400 billion dollars, and the majority of its customers have never paid Google a dime. Same goes for Facebook. These companies figured out how to give value to the … [Read more...] about How Can I Help? Why ‘Adding Value First’ Is the Winning Formula for Growth

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Fully 40% of information workers surveyed in the Forrester Analytics Business Technographics® Workforce Survey, 2020, said their coworkers frequently interrupt them via instant messages, emails, or other types of digital communication. This scenario resonates with all of us, even in day-to-day life — think about your group chat that blew up last night with party planning logistics while you were trying to cook dinner and ensure that your kids had done their homework. The challenge: There are simply too many notifications — and most of them sound the same. Our phones vibrate or ping, and we don’t know if the Supreme Court has reached a landmark decision or if our bank account balance has changed. Google’s latest experiment, Little Signals , looks to solve this problem by building on “calm technology” to deliver notifications through soft signals (such as puffs of air and shadows) that move from the background to the … [Read more...] about 5 Steps For Brands To Build A Thoughtful Notification Strategy