Category: Business

For business, and professional items

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Customer Success – Key Role

The role of Customer Success Manager is a key part of the digital transformation of business, driving both ARR and Lifetime Customer Value up Digital Transformation, it’s all the rage, and doing a simple Google search yields a plethora of hits, from training to consultants, to the big market research companies, all weighing in. This wave of disruption continues to grow, and brings with it myriad opportunities to completely change the business.

In a nutshell, in the late ‘oughts, with the introduction of the Apple iPhone, the convergence of ubiquitous network connectivity, and the rise of the “cloud,” the stage was set for yet another transformation of business. Suddenly, the paradigm of where you work, and what tasks you perform were being disrupted. From the simple: an app on your smartphone to approve purchase requisitions, to the complex: integration of the CRM, the Marketing systems, and the ERP system to provide deep insight into the function and flow of business, and much more were realized every day. Continue reading →

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Digitalization

A word I am increasingly hearing tossed around is “digitalization”, something that probably makes you scratch your head and wonder what it is trying to say.

Yet, it isn’t so difficult of a concept. If you think of the rise of computers, and workstations in the 1980’s and 1990’s, with the systems that they brought along, email, ERP, CRM, communications, and others, the workplace changed tremendously.

These innovations brought quantum jumps in productivity, enabling efficiencies that were unimaginable in the pre-computer era. Continue reading →

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Five Little Words

Five little words. “That feature doesn’t sell products“. Seems innocuous enough, but it is the death of product development when uttered by engineering.

Product Management is tasked with defining what a product should do, what features are needed, and how to compare/differentiate vis-a-vis with the competitors. We write requirements, and guide them into and through the development process.

All to have engineering remove features that they don’t believe drive value. Unfortunately, engineering often isn’t cognizant the concept of “whole product“. That beyond the core widget are the services and traits of the product that extend the offering, and provide the unique value proposition, thus enticing the customer to choose to purchase your product or service. Continue reading →

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Competitive Analysis

One core aspect of the product and marketing role is to get insight on the competitive landscape. Apart from what you can find from their websites, you will want to dig deeper, and gain understanding of their business.

Fortunately, there are several sources to go to. Some of these are free, and some are not, but if you can get access to these, I highly recommend taking full advantage.

Dunn and Bradstreet – This is the gold standard.  It is not cheap, but if you have an investor relations group, odds are good that you have access to D&B.  It is worth the effort to get to this source.  Far more information on even small and early stage companies, as well as the best information on privately held firms.  I doubt I could justify the cost if I worked someplace without a subscription, but it really helps pave the path, and fill in blanks. Continue reading →

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Innovation Management

As I research the Innovation process in preparation for a potential training program around Innovation Management, there are several thoughts that are swirling in my head.
Being a long time technical marketer, I am familiar with many of the “Chasmista’s” methodologies (loosely the body of thought inspired by Geoffrey Moore and his seminal work “Crossing the Chasm”), the concept of disruption, innovation, “tornado” markets are all well captured.

But I have also read practical marketing advice from Theodore Levin (in “The Marketing Imagination”) that innovation is often difficult, and that the leaders in innovation are frequently not the dominant force in the market, that often it is better to get the second bite at the apple (let someone else do that difficult work, and apply their learning to have cost, scale, or other advantages – The irony being that Apple often is seen as an innovator, but in reality, they are far better at that second bite.) Continue reading →

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Data Scientist / Data Engineer

As part of my assignment, I have been researching a couple of hot roles in the digitization or digital transformation sphere, that of Data Engineer and Data Scientist. This fascinating trek down the rabbit hole has been quite illuminating.

One of the backbones of the digital transformation is the advent, and rise of this little thing called “Big Data”. With Software taking over the world, compute power becoming ubiquitous and practically free, just about every part of modern life creates data that can be leveraged in myriad ways. From tracking your browsing history so that if you research Chicago Deep Dish pizza pans, the next time you log into Facebook, you will see ads from Amazon or Sur la Table for hard anodized, non-stick deep dish pizza pans. Continue reading →

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Digital Transformation and the GOtV efforts

As I have been focused on the various roles of digital transformation, researching how it affects individuals across the organization, I stumbled on an interesting article in the NY Times that embodied the phenomenon in a way that hadn’t occurred to me.

This article was around the ground game of the coming election (2016 US Presidential) in Las Vegas Nevada. Shadowing a doorbell ringer, a person who goes door to door to remind people of the importance of voting in the election. An offhand reference to this doorbell ringer consulting her smartphone to find the next target of her efforts. Continue reading →

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Customer Success

Customer success. When you hear it, what does it call to mind? Your customers winning in the market? The warm thought that you have helped them achieve their goals? That your technology is delivering quantifiable benefits to your customer’s bottom line?

Yes. To all of this. However, there is a more formal definition that is gaining currency. But, before we get to that, let’s digress a bit and talk about Digital Transformation, and how that is causing significant disruption in the modern business world.

Digital Transformation, what is it?

Continue reading →