Julian Kroll's Blog

Design Integration

krollmeister — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:20:38 +0000

I recently went to a 2 day conference where the theme focused on design in business. To most of us when we talk about design we instantly think about product design, but in fact design covers all aspects of our businesses. The focus of this conference was to get businesses to consider themselves in a different light as the rules of the 21st century are quite different to those for businesses in the 19th century during the industrial revolution and into the 20th century.

The concept of a customer centric organisation is not new but often businesses say they are customer centric but do not organise themselves in a fashion to really live the dream. Here are a few comments about design integrated businesses that you can consider. If you want to know more than feel free to give me a call or email. Even my thinking is evolving as I consider the topic further.

It is about your culture, your product your brand and the way you deal with innovation through the structure of your organisation
Design serves as a problem poser i.e. you can’t change what you don’t clearly understand
It portrays the reality of the future without going there and spending the big money up front
Integrated design acts as a problem solver, try to solve more than one problem in the process of thinking about impacts on your business and your customers
Design is a provoker of change as change happens when the risk of the status quo is higher than the risk of change

Finally design led business know the following sorts of things

they maintain a customer oriented focus
the lines between who we are and who we serve are blurred
they look at the long-term to see future trends and directions which shape their business
they collaborate in the business like it is a team sport
they are ambitious about change
they are different in the market place

Marketing basics

krollmeister — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:51:04 +0000

The first thing I will say is that I am no marketing expert, but there are a few things that I have picked up in my time working with clients and working with Marketers who are far more switched on than me. I work with many clients who still forget the basics of good marketing. Here are some rules that I work to,

Know your customer. If you cannot describe who your primary customer target is then how can you market to them. Find your ideal target and build your marketing campaigns round them and the rest will fall into line
Lay out all your current marketing material on a table. does it look the same i.e. font, colours, layout, key messages etc
What are you trying to achieve from your marketing programs?
Do you communicate all the major points about your offering and your business?
Have you considered the best way to promote to your target audience?
when you use different media types e.g. web, brochures and direct mail for example, how does your communications translate across all those mediums?
How can you monitor the effectiveness of your marketing activities?
Are there seasonal opportunities to promote various offers throughout the year?
Do you have case studies and reference sites to validate what you are saying to clients in your communications pieces?

On top of this you must have a robust process for capturing those valuable leads and converting them into customers. Easier said than done. If your campaign is highly successful. could your business cope with an increased volume of leads. Some companies use trade shows and events as a way to generate a sales pipeline that lasts the year. This is particularly true if the product has a long sales cycle time.

I suppose the most important message is that if you are not sure seek professional advice. From what I have seen, it is well worth the effort. I am not sure who said it but I recall a saying along the lines of, “50% of all marketing works, if I knew which 50% I would be a rich man”. Seeking expert assistance increases the odds of getting it right.

Get it right before you set forth

krollmeister — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:01:29 +0000

Many business owners do not see the value in documenting what they intend to do before they do it. Take for example the idea of a feasibility study. What does this actually mean. Well in fact a feasibility study can be a valuable tool to give the business market insight prior to investing their precious cash to develop new products or to market to new customer segments.

Here is what I put on my check list of things to do when looking at developing a feasibility study for clients,

what does the market segment look like, how large, how many competitors, what is their value proposition and what is your point of differentiation
what are the market forces at play, use something like porters 5 forces or PESTE or a value chain analysis to assess the market
get the numbers, really dig in and see how big the market is and what percentage of the market you think you can realistically obtain, then
Plug those numbers into a NPV or RoI model and see if you can actually make any money based on the up front investment required

Why do this? well it can be a sobering process. It will show you how large the sales pipeline needs to be and how quickly you need to build sales. Often we set forth being prepared to invest dollars into a product and then when it is time to go to market, we expect sales to jump into our lap. The feasibility study should give you a sense for how big the pipeline needs to be on launch day.

Ignoring this can leave you will a big headache. What is that headache you ask? well needing to go to a funder for more dollars . Funders can be your shareholders, the bank or your wife who is growing impatient about the fact that the bottomless pit called your business is not delivering results fast enough.

I usually find that there are weak connections in the value chain particularly around suppliers who the business relies on to deliver materials and even clients. Never under-estimate how long it takes to get these parties aligned.

From this I think spending time on a marketing plan is the next logical step. More on that in my next blog

Media and the online environment

krollmeister — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:25:29 +0000

I am currently doing an interesting project for a client looking at how they might be able to utilise iTunes and develop an application for the app store. This raises some interesting observations. Developing an application in isolation has limited benefit unless you have a consumer application with wide appeal. If you look at this investment as a stand alone project, the RoI will not justify undertaking it, so you must look at the projhect as part of your marketing program to build awareness of your brand, educate and market a portion of your service offering. Also there is a definite need to link to blogs, podcasts and utilise other social networking sites to build awareness of your business. In todays switched on world young consumers expect to get what they want through mediums that they use day to day. This is increasing come through devises that they carry with them like the iPhone

Short term versus Long term focus

krollmeister — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:17:54 +0000

I had a recent experience with a client that got me thinking about where business owners are thinking on a day to day basis. In the case I am going to discuss there was a focus towards a short term outcome which the owner felt was the right approach to delivering a result that could be seen in the short term.

In my view this is a typical human behaviour and not necessarily the right approach, but I am open to alternative viewpoints. Why focus on a short term outcome or quick fix when the underlying health of the business is not fully understood. A long term planning perspective (1 – 2 years) is a much better use of a business owners time in my opinion.

You cannot change direction in a super tanker in 30 seconds, it takes at least 5 miles and a gentle change in direction to make the full turn. A business is the same. A sudden change in direction or a tactical response to an issue will only highlight more issues. The natural impulse is to change quickly but considering the broader business issue will end up being a more informed decision and use the owners time more effectively to bring about lasting change.

After all there is no point in turning the tap on faster to fill the bucket if there is a hole in the bottom. Many visual metaphors but they are the most appropriate way to try and decsribe the situation.

The moral of this story is to look at both the short term and long term position but you must have the bigger picture plan in your mind otherwise you will end up taking your business on a very long journey, consume much energy and might be no better off.

If this sounds like you then let me know your thoughts and if you had any successes or failures as a result.

Value Maps

krollmeister — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:54:15 +0000

It is interesting how small businesses in particular embark on programs to grow without understanding the impacts on other functional areas and the value chain that they sit it. A simple process to run through is to map where you sit in relation to your suppliers, partners, customers, competitors and the likes and then assess each based on a set of variables, that, in one page allow you to see the landscape. having this one page value map is also useful to assess if the business decision you are about to make is really useful to the company or skirting round the edge of the truly picture big.

All too often I see companies saying I want to rebrand my business or I want to add more resellers to my network and they fail to consider what the impacts are on other areas. A simple half day workshop is a great way to see your business with more clarity and expressed quite simply also.

Balancing Acts

krollmeister — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:59:20 +0000

When you are trying to accelerate your business to grow faster the tendancy is to focus on things that you are already doing well and try harder in those areas with the view that this will build more momentum. In fact it is likely to have little impact as the large scale gains are where the business constraints are. While this sounds quite logical, it is often overlooked by business owners.

I use the analogy of the water hose with a bend in it. No matter how hard you turn on the water, it won’t come out any faster until the bend is undone. Only at this time will the water flow faster, or you will find the next constraint point.

Growing your business is a balancing act. looking at the key functional aspects i.e. Operations, Product development, Sales and marketing, IT, HR, Customer services and the overall results of performance. A lop sided business points to weakness in the future. Weakness if the business needs to grow quickly, or weakness if the business falls upon hard times. The moral of the story, is look first don’t leave it til it is too late.

Missionary Selling

krollmeister — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:58:29 +0000

In my last post I mention the tension between Direct and Indirect channels. In my view that tension is a healthy thing as it services two purposes. Firstly a direct sales channel allows the supplier to get a very clear picture of what the market conditions and requirements are first hand. An indirect channel allows you to scale up quickly and cost effectively i.e. pay as you go model. But this is not the primary purpose of todays blog.

Missionary selling is a necessary evil for companies entering a new market. It proves several things. Firstly are we on song and does not product meet the market expectation. Is there a new, although it is a bit late to find out at this point that there is not, the initial market research should have found this out much earlier. Even if the desired outcome is to set up an Indirect channel, often you still have to go into the market to prove that your offering can cut it. You might want to build some reference clients where you have to sell at cost to get a foothold. In that case it is not possible to sell through a channel partner and take a big loss.

On the other hand you might use the channel partner and their client base to test with “friendly” clients. In this case you would still expect to b heavily involved in the sale with the channel partner. This acts as a training ground, builds good will and allows you to identify any channel partner weaknesses. It also allows you to confirm that you partner support materials are up to scratch and that they can survive the sales process without having to ring you every 5 minutes.

So the final thought is that it is a very powerful proposition when the maker of a product or service is sitting in front of a potential client. Think how important you would fel if you had met the makers of the iPad as part of a market validation process.

Enduring Channels

krollmeister — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:30:07 +0000

All to often I talk to businesses that think they need to reinvent the wheel. They think their product is unique and needs a new channel to get to users of their product. This is not the case. It is seldom a requirement to set up a new channel to market. In fact this is one of the most costly approaches to commercialise a product you can take. The old saying “products come and go but channels endure” is very true.

Always do your homework and look carefully at your route to market. What demand is their and how will you get there i.e. license, OEM, franchise, agent or distributor. On a final note, this is not to say that Direct sales are out of the question. In fact the two live in harmony quite nicely. Perhaps the subject for another blog, missionary selling and how this establishes your presense in a new market.

Getting to market

krollmeister — Mon, 10 May 2010 08:24:42 +0000

Why are so many companies fixated with developing products with as many widgets and features that it takes far to long to go to market. Often when they do go to market they find half of the functionality designed is not what the customer wants anyway and functionality ends up being peeled out. This is particularly true for Saas products that I have seen.

Don’t forget the rule, get a basic solution fit for purpose into the market and then let users and demand shape your thinking (not dictate it but shape it). Your product will evolve and give you a better RoI if you can follow this rule and you won’t have exhausted all your hard earned money in the development stage and have nothing left once you go to launch