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5 AI Trends Every CEO Must Act On
Earlier this year, I shared takeaways from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report, which showed how AI is reshaping business at a macro level. Building on that, Google Cloud’s 2025 AI Trends highlights five forces that will directly impact companies in the year ahead.
AI is no longer experimental. It is restructuring markets, reshaping customer expectations, and redrawing competitive boundaries. Here are five AI trends CEOs are preparing for now:
Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership: Part Three
Tue, Oct 6, 2020 — Analyzing the Industry for Key Success Factors In our last blog, we took a look at, and charted, how longer-term trends will impact your company and its customers. Armed with this data, we can now undertake a study of the broader industry. This is a critical step if we are to identify the key success factors (KSFs), and determining how they fit with your company’s strengths and offerings. The work should be undertaken by the full executive team, to ensure diversity in thinking and buy-in to conclusions. This will be a huge help later, in the implementation phase.
Focusing Your Sales Force During an Economic Downturn
Thu, Oct 1, 2020 — By Aurora Toth and Ann Anderson During times of business volatility, companies are forced to make quick decisions about how to deploy their resources – financial and human. While we acknowledge that Sales is an expensive function within an organization – it is a critical one. Times of crisis provide an opportunity to look at how the salesforce is deployed, where it creates the largest impact, areas you may be missing and how to either refine or completely redesign Sales to achieve your business objectives. My colleague, Ann Anderson is the founder at Retail Partner Solutions. Ann has spent 25+ years partnering with America’s largest retailers such as Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Barnes & Noble, Sam’s Club, Costco and more to help CPG brands thrive in-store and on store shelves.
Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership: Part Two
Tue, Sep 29, 2020 — Customer Needs and Scanning for Trends In the business-to-business (B2B) world, the purchasing process is far more complex than the journey undertaken by an individual consumer. B2B deals tend to be more concentrated and have larger value, and include more people in a higher-stakes battle for large sales. In the first article of the series, we talked about the importance of having a strategy. Understanding the role that the customer and current trends take in influencing the purchasing process is critical to defining your go-to-market strategy. In this blog, we’ll take a deeper look at these influential factors.
Why Now is a Great Time to Build Customer Loyalty – A Guide for CEOs of Mid-Sized Companies
Thu, Sep 24, 2020 — Companies should always be concerned about loyalty and growing the value of existing customers. But now, perhaps more than ever before, as we navigate through the disruption of the pandemic and the resulting economic volatility, reactivating existing customer relationships is a critical path to restoring revenue. I spoke recently with Tres Tronvold, a strategist and customer loyalty expert. Tres states that at a macro level there are three broad things companies should think about when it comes to reactivating their customers -- Safety, Creating Occasions and Driving Sales.
Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership
Tue, Sep 22, 2020 — Part I: Your Business in the New Normal Small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) are the shoulders upon which America stands. With more than 90 percent of American businesses comprising the SME universe, it’s easy to understand why they are considered to be the backbone of the economy. Far more people deliver goods and services – and earn their paychecks – on behalf of SMEs than they do from large enterprises. In spite of this, it’s the large corporations that make headlines on CNBC and wield disproportionate influence on their chosen markets. Though these headlines make it easy to believe that competition is a slug-fest between huge players in a market, the reality, it turns out, is quite different: Even in spite of the pandemic, many mid-market companies have maintained profitability -- and are still growing.
Supply Chain Savvy
Fri, Sep 18, 2020 — How CEOs of mid-size companies should think about their supply chains during any crisis As CEOs grapple with managing through the current economic volatility wrought by COVID-19, another area we dive into in this series of articles is supply chain management. My collaborator on this subject is Juli Lassow of JHL Solutions who spent her career at Target, Inc. in Merchandising and Global Sourcing roles. Juli now helps companies plan and navigate the intricacies of a modern supply chain and adjust strategy during times of change.
Executing Through Economic Challenges: Part Three
Wed, Sep 16, 2020 — Capital Considerations of COVID As a business owner who has planned and prepared your company to survive dips in demand, little could have braced you for the Grand Canyon-sized maw that opened when the coronavirus struck this spring. The journey back from the challenges of pandemic gloom, for many, has required a type of mettle that we never thought we had. If you’ve tuned in to the two earlier segments of this series, you have understood that the climb back to the rim of the canyon requires a commitment to execution, insights, and empathy, as well as gauging the economic health of your organization.
Executing Through Economic Challenges: Part Two
Mon, Sep 14, 2020 — Gauging Your Economic Health As a business owner in 2020, there are two words that would likely strike fear in your heart – and they are not “global pandemic.” “How’s business?” has become the couplet most reviled by many CEOs – including those who traditionally answer that query with a smile, thumbs up, and hearty laugh. The coronavirus has indeed transformed the outlook for many businesses, and in my previous blog we discussed the critical importance of execution, perspective, and empathy in withstanding the challenges that continue to lap at our doorstep.
Relighting Your Economic Engine: How a Blue Ocean Strategy of Innovation Can Get You Back on Track
Thu, Sep 10, 2020 — As America’s economic engine continues its recovery from its pandemic-imposed slumber, businesses must adjust to a new way of selling in the “next normal.” This means, unfortunately, that all of the work and planning you previously put into your go-to-market strategy, and 2020 business plan, needs to be revisited – and revised – on the fly. Though some of your original insights may be salvageable, it is likely that the changed world means big changes for what you offer, how you offer it – and whether the market will respond.