Just as Charles Dickens put it about Paris in his novel Tale of Two Cities, similarly the present times may also be dubbed as both the best and worst of times. It simply depends on which side one is one. Technology is changing rapidly, and along with it making wholesale transformation to the very way we live. This has paved the way for the SCaaP Model or Societal Change as a Platform. Technology has the power to help solve problems. As per SCaaP, civic society now has to work has a holistic unit. There are some organizations that have already applied bits of the SCaaP system. They are Donors Choose, Health leads, College for America and Salesforce. Health Leads for example leverages the collaborative knowledge of the entire ecosystem for its solutions. This also provides ample scope for covert digital marketing along the way. All these organizations are allowing the society to co-create new products.

Source:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/technology-can-help-solve-societal-problems/

Uploaded Date: 22nd May 2017

Some interesting finds were discovered from the internal research on employee happiness commissioned by Facebook. It was carried out by the HR team along with a professor from Wharton. The first find was that company pride was tied to three factors- optimism in company growth, mission about corporate strategy and goals, and social consciousness in improving the world. These three elements were observed as critical across all roles like technology, sales and marketing. The team members at Facebook truly appreciated when someone created value by making a difference. This happened at fundraising meets for colleges resulting in improved traction for the brand.

Source:https://www.fastcompany.com/40397753/heres-what-facebook-discovered-from-its-internal-research-on-employee-happiness-2?

Uploaded Date: 20th May 2017

There are some executive coaches such as Carla Fugit who plan things in great detail and execute perfectly. It emanates out of a genuine passion to genuine help others by proving them management training. The process involves a lot of fun by leveraging innate creativity each trainee possesses. They are encouraged to step out of their respective comfort zones and do something greater, perhaps become a thought leader in a field. Relaxation is necessary to understand that the person involved is not the centre of the universe. To achieve all of this, the first step is to believe in oneself. The belief stems from own abilities, customers and team mates.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2016/12/19/what-you-believe-you-will-see-preparing-your-business-for-2017-and-beyond/#f288998532cf

Uploaded Date: 17th May 2017

A common fallacy of management thinkers or planners is that corporate strategy is a thing in itself and its execution is unrelated. However, experiences of various companies have repeatedly proved that a simple “Where to Play” strategy when divorced from “How to Win” does not work out. Examples abound such as Uber’s in China, or Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia. In the former case, Uber seized market share in every country due to its innovative approach being the first to market. In China however, Didi Chuxing was already present so this strategy backfired and no other localized tactic was drawn up. In Microsoft’s case, its strong corporate relationships failed to translate to its expected upwards trajectory in smartphones. A lot of cross-country failures have been observed especially between USA and Canada. Brands such as Tim Hortons have failed to light up the American market while American brands like Target are struggling in Canada. Thus a matched pair between strategy and execution is necessary to complete the Strategy Choice Cascade Method.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/04/strategic-choices-need-to-be-made-simultaneously-not-sequentially?

Uploaded Date: 13th May 2017

It is a common fallacy that in order to launch an innovation, one needs to search out for great ideas. Instead, companies will be better served, if instead they chose to seek problems. Albert Einstein for example did not develop anything that wasn’t previously known, but simply put it all together as he came looking for problems. Similarly, the world has been groping for the past decade with problems on devices that we built long back. Moore’s Law will eventually slow down, but instead Quantum computer has taken on a different leap. Innovative thinking requires professionals to move away from the traditional corporate strategy induced planning. In this method, the entire market was seen as a game of chess, but instead now leaders need to be equipped with more experiential learning. It is such search for problems that led to the rise of Google and enabled it to sustain over a period of time. Earlier, the likes of Clarence Birdseye, Steve Jobs or Charles Schwab revolutionized their respective hearths by looking for existing problems before acting on them.

Source:https://www.inc.com/greg-satell/if-you-want-to-innovate-you-need-to-focus-on-this-one-thing.html?

Historically, cross-selling has been practices by a variety of business concerns as it has generally benefitted both the seller and buyer. The first major benefit the buyer receives is the convenience as a single platform provides multiple benefits which could be tangible or intangible. Secondly, the customer eventually even receives some form of financial advantages as a result of combined packages. However, off late cross-selling has been perceived as something negative due to its misuse. Instead, marketers now want customer to cross-buy through their own initiative rather than the sales team pushing any supplementary product. This should be as a result of the excellent execution of corporate strategy and not as a replacement for a broken one. In that case, the final results have triple benefits- loyal customers, lower selling costs and greater number of products per customer.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Strategy-Talk-Whats-Wrong-with-Cross-Selling-Anyway?

Due to the foibles of several short-sighted companies, it has now become crystal clear that in order to run a sustainable business plan, it is essential that it must be driven through some higher level purpose. While a lot of organizations are driven by a certain mission or vision, many struggle to implement those ideals on the employees or other stakeholders. For this, the company must understand that the said purpose must be totally clear and ideally must be wedded into its corporate strategy. It is also more engaging an approach towards the customer. This is the ideal trope to induce sales personnel with the values. However, the said mission once established must be constantly reinvigorated for continuous improvement. This can be post weekly staff meetings, when employees come up with pertinent observations.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamvanderbloemen/2017/01/29/why-purpose-should-be-a-pivotal-part-of-your-business-strategy/#537448a54135 

Uploaded Date: 30th March 2017

As per the latest Trust Barometer, trust seems to be generally falling apart. Confidence on all four major institution types – businesses, government, media and NGOs- fell for the first time in seventeen years. Within this category though, businesses still retain an iota of trust. More than half surveyed, confirmed their trust in business but CEOs’ reputations fell down by twelve points to just over a third of them convinced. Three ways have been identified which can help businesses regain customer confidence. One of them is an increase in employee engagement which has been observed to be amongst the finest methods to talent management in any company. A two-way dialogue must be fostered between the company, its employees and customers. And then companies will need to act on the feedback generated from the various stakeholders.

Source:http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/brink-distrust-new-study-urges-companies-engage-customers-employees-01765329#wmjheF9fKmEcpOyw.97

Lenovo now holds a twenty one percent share of the overall PC market and is the world’s largest maker of original equipments. This number has been boosted thanks to its acquisition of IBM’s PC division and Google’s Motorola Mobility. It now wants to reach the thirty percent threshold. However, all is not well as evidenced by the marketing research report compiled by Gartner showing that Lenovo has dropped out of the top five in the mobile phone market with a thirty three percent decline in sales. To rectify this trend and build on its successes, Lenovo has outlined its aims to being a customer-centric company. So that this terminology does not remain mere rhetoric, it is trying to develop a supply chain smooth enough to reach customers at the pace of Amazon which is seen as the trend setter. Greater forecast accuracy, reduction in order errors and reduced inventory lag need to accompany such a strategy.

Source:http://www.supplychainbrain.com/content/blogs/think-tank/blog/article/lenovos-key-to-boosting-market-share-become-amazon-like/

China’s Didi Chuxing has emerged as the most endurable rival to Uber anywhere in the world. When Didi first started, inspired by the UK’s Hailo, it was beset by immense competition within the country, most notably from Alibaba backed Kuaidi Dache. Didi then went to Tencent for help in funding which it duly got, to fight Kuaidi on all fronts. Their rivalry was strongest on the smart phones but a deluge of a snowstorm in 2012 initiated a great surge in online booking of cabs. Then in 2014, during the Chinese New Year, Tencent’s We Chat service showed an immense rise in gifting using the mobile phones. This made all realize the mobile phones would prove to be the greatest differentiator thus a strong business analytics  wing was needed and brought in place. Eventually these two held majority of the ride-hailing market in China, but global giant Uber was set to enter. This forced the two to reach a compromise with Didi owning three-fifths of the new entity. Uber hardly faced any competition in the rest of the world, and did not presume Didi Chuxing to endure for so long. The latter even took the fight to Uber’s home turf by investing in their rival Lyft. Uber however had almost a limitless capacity for fund generation and a fresh round of investment from a fund in Saudi Arabia totally changed the tables. Even Chinese state backed companies were investing in Uber or other Chinese ride-sharing enterprises. Didi now relented to invite Uber over for peace talks. Uber now owns a certain percentage of Didi Chuxing and both these companies have non-voting members on each other’s boards. This compromise proved to be a practical decision.

Source:https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-didi-cheng-wei/

It has been repeatedly observed that customer acquisition is far more difficult than retaining existing one. This can only be possible if a through customer experience is provided that is both personal as well as unique. In order to provide this, every possible medium of engagement must be applied. Business consulting provided by Deloitte confirms that over ninety percent of enterprises regard customer experience across multiple channels as a competitive edge. That is where tracking mentions on social media outlets like Twitter becomes so important. An omni-channel approach is good for providing service but for engagement, multiple platforms helps. Website design now needs to be structured to integrate with tablets, laptops and smart phones. This is because as Pew Research has found out majority of people in the developed nations and increasingly in the others as well use multiple devices. Predictive analytics must be used to extract vital business intelligence about customer segments. It uses techniques of data mining, modeling and machine learning to provide the solutions.

Source:http://customerthink.com/how-to-make-your-customers-experience-unique-and-personal/