Strategic Foresight - Insights in Business and Technology

 India China Strategic Play - Striving for Growth and Leadership 

  Ten Rebranding Do’s And Don’ts   Do re-imagine your business beyond the logo.  Do gain support from the C-suite.  Do get internal as well as external insights.   Do keep it real. Do bring in all key stakeholders.  Do leverage the opportunity to drive broader change.   Do over communicate.   Do keep it aligned.  Do make sure your people can deliver.   Do find the right partner.    What’s in Today’s MarTech Toolkit?   Close to two-thirds (64%) of all the marketers surveyed are currently using artificial intelligence (AI). A full 60% say they have a fully defined AI strategy. This year, the leading use case for those marketers using AI is to drive next best actions, followed by personalizing the overall customer journey and automating customer interactions.    How to Win over a Team of Experts Try these three strategies: 1. Look inward to the team. Your success will depend on your ability to build interdependence and cooperation among team members. Focus on the team itself and se

Digital Business Ecosystem Under The Hood   In an ecosystem, we typically see three types of horizontal business models emerge - Aggregators, Integrators, and Infrastructures - which may be distinguished based on their position in the value chain. Additionally, firms may specialise and act as capability providers. Five Anxieties of Tech CEO The first is dealing with increasing individual and team performance. Technology moves at such a rapid pace that is challenging to keep up with evolving new concepts.  The second is with doing more with less – either with resources (people and budgets) or time to meet the company goals.   Most technology organisations have developed specializations over the years and the CEO experiences the third anxiety of leveraging with partner organisations as specializations are all over.  Often, either the organization, the investors or the board has a new vision, and the CEO now needs to deal with the fourth anxiety of how to synchronize one’s executio

  Key to Building a Great Company Do the hard things . To build a great startup, you have to move fast. But you shouldn’t let urgency distract you from tackling big, thorny problems. Doing the hard things is one of the most effective ways to build true defensibility.  Protect your principles. Having clear company principles helps your team make faster, better decisions. It’s easier to act autonomously when you have a clear framework to follow. Failing to protect these values can shift your company towards an “exception-based” culture.  Pay your debts. Every time you make a sub-optimal corporate decision, you create a “debt” that must be paid. This is true across engineering, product, and marketing teams. To avoid debts spiraling, keep track of them and proactively pay them down.  Build a brand. If you’re building a good business, you’ll inevitably attract competition. For consumer companies, it’s essential to create an impactful, differentiated brand. If you do it well, you’ll outcom

Personal Characteristics   According to Gilda Waisburd, a specialist in creativity, the traits of creative people are as follows:3  • Flexible (they go beyond the obvious)  • Fluid (they generate many ideas about a problem)  • Elaborative (they expand the task in detail)  • Tolerant of ambiguity (they stand up well to conflict)  • Able to see the whole (they take a systemic approach)  • Inquiring (interest in many disciplines)  • Sensitive to the interests of others (they understand others’ needs)  • Curious (interested in “playing” with things)  • Independent (they come up with ideas of their own)  • Reflective (they think about what they see and hear) • Action-oriented (they go beyond thinking and the idea to act)  • Able to concentrate (they work in a consistent manner)  • Persistent (they don’t give up easily) • Committed (they get involved with things)  • Sense of humor (they are able to laugh and use humor to put things in perspective)  Personal Qualities Frank Barron, Howard

  Bridging the gap: How and why product management differs from company to company Companies, like many in New York, that are introducing solutions to mature industries tend to be sales-driven, so product teams are informed by what customers will readily buy and are measured based on output and revenue. Companies, like many in the Bay Area, that are creating new categories are generally vision-driven, so product teams are more cross-functional and iterative, and are measured based on validated learnings and outcomes. The two models on each end of the spectrum manage risk differently and, with regard to startups, offer a varied range of results. Predicated on introducing solutions to previously unarticulated problems (e.g. Snapchat), Bay Area startups and product managers are tasked with launching moonshots. Failure is more frequent and expensive but success is exponential in size. How Marketing can assist in Maximising Growth Fortunately, there's a good rule of thumb called

  Trouble with Thought Leadership “B2B marketing leaders tend to get trapped inside a sales cycle in the way they execute,” says Bruce. “That’s not the kind of thinking that’s going to generate brand equity and certainly not thought leadership. [Thought leadership] is a long-term strategic investment and journey that you need to go on as a business.” Thought Leadership Doesn't Work When we asked B2B buyers what they think about the content they receive from vendors, over 60% of respondents to Forrester’s 2021 Content Preferences Survey gave these unflattering opinions. Buyers are drowning in a sea of sameness. They fail to find any value in the content they receive, because much of it is myopically focused on the vendor and its products and services — not on the cares and concerns of the recipient. Why Commercial Insight instead of Thought Leradership “Rarely will thought leadership alone cause customers to change their views or prompt immediate action,” says David Anders

  Blockspace is best the product of 2020 Blockspace is a space on the blockchain that can be used to store information and run code. Critically, it differs from traditional computing space because the hardware is subordinate to the software, the blockchain code. These systems, when sufficiently decentralized, are more trustable — as in they can make stronger commitments — than ones controlled by centralized parties. Twitter and Musk - Wealth Creator “Entrepreneurs create wealth; governments destroy wealth. Ultimately, it’s about division of labor and specialization. Entrepreneurs specialize in creating wealth; governments should specialize in the protection of life, liberty and property; we should devote a part of our time and money to the extent we can in helping others as part of our social responsibility. Entrepreneurs sow the seed corn, we reap most of the harvest. Denying them seed corn will surely mean starvation for us.” How Leaders Can Focus and Prioritize their Work i

 NBN Co Evolution - 2009 to 2022 driven by Political Philosophy 

  B2B Suppliers need to upgrade their Channels for Ease of Sales  Leadership Mantra The salesperson who drives you crazy How to be professional in Virtual meetings Aligning Sales and Marketing

Crossing the Chasm Marketers are still a challenge Content drives the Customer Journey  How leaders build the trust Aligning Customer Sales and Customer Service 

Big techs ambition - (FB, AMZN, APL, MSFT, Google)  Three things you can not buy Mobile Sector has lessons for Indias Economy Why Customers don't like Sales Rep How to establish Leadership presense Making changes is not a matter of willpower

Why selling to C level execs is challenging Manage digital transformation Ways to get referrals Lessons from scaling a product team Leadership post-pandemic How to be a super reader

Weekend Reading Facebook has changed its name (context: Metaverse )  Leaders need to cultivate complementary strengths Increase Business Referrals New rules of marketing Buyers Journey is becoming more like a quest

 Weekend Reading  Atomic Rewards: The Solution to Attention Recession (Part 3) Entrepreneurs need me time Common biases in boardroom culture Four ways Jobs will respond to automation Four signs of founder market fit Successful selling - intelligent choices over dat a

The future of platforms How to overcome 3 common sales challenges Every week - you need an untouchable day Stoicism for a better life Productivity tips for remote salespeople Sales trend to follow for better selling  Why sales deals are refused

  Want more deals then teach your reps how to write  Digital Transformation success lies beyond Technology  How Content Drives the Customer Journey Sales - Stop giving COVID Excuses Ambiguous times are no time for ambiguous leadership Strategy without tactics is a dream

  Less is more with Sales Proposal The New Elements of Digital Transformation Trends B2B Sales Leader Must Address  CMO's Exerting Influence FAST vs SMART Goals Leaders Need to Cultivate Complementary Strengths

8 catchy quotes to shape your vision of leadership and management by Leslie Petrequin: 1. “Play chess not checkers”.  2. “How you handle *the bus* says a lot about your management style.”  3. “How you handle *the bus* says a lot about your management style.”  4. “The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity.”  5. “Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor.”  6. “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with ~Jim Rohn”.  7. “Hire for attitude, train for skills”.  8. “You can’t find people you are not looking for”.  More here