How are businesses that are successful?

The search for the perfect business is like finding the lost ark, the Holy Grail and the Philosopher’s Stone. There may be, it may not, but they do not stop searching. Let’s start from the premise that there is no perfect business, and we wonder which of the businesses that seem to be aware if there were.

As we live in a Global Society, which identifies with Business and Enterprise business with Brand, is the ideal business could be something like Coca Cola, Microsoft, Sony?  Or it might be more in line with Google, Amazon or IKEA? An ideal business is a business that moves a lot of money, right?, Which provides benefits and generate more value and business. So, perhaps the ideal business is intrinsically linked with money, could be the HSBC, Santander, the Chasse Manhattan Bank?, Perhaps an Investment Fund, an insurer? Well, in light of recent events with its own name as Lehmann Brothers or Merryl lynch, that the road may be another A company of online auctions? You may something about the spectacle and entertainment, as this is the entertainment company, Pixar, Time Warner, Paramount? Something more cool, admired and liked, Apple, MTV, Nike? A business with the glamor of Armani or sofiticación Bentley?

Big business all of them. Companies that operate large-scale, led by the giant among giants: Wall Mart. Not all profitable, of course. No simple, but global no doubt. The majority of them suffering from what we might call the Babel syndrome, characterized by trying to cover everything and touch the sky. Most of Marks mentioned here are contained in the Ranking 2008 “Best Global Brands” that produces an annual Interbrand. Ah!, But the ideal business could not have anything to do with any of them. Mies van der Rohe, the great German architect, said at once, when asked about the secret of perfection that reflected the great works:

“Perfection is not a question of dimensions, but of proportions.”

If there is a perfect business, will surely be a business balanced proportions. Balance means harmony. If there is a perfect business, to be sure, it will mark a banner recognized, valued, well positioned, associated with strong values and an emotional connection with the public. When the big consulting firms develop their rankings of most valuable companies, always take into account the importance of the brand, the reasons for consumer purchases and likelihood of revenue from the brand in question. These parameters determine the value of the Business of Enterprises, of Brands. Serve as an example the ranking of the 50 most valuable brands in Latin America produced by Interbrand and AméricaEconomía.

The 2.0Internet has changed quite a few of the parameters with which we were accustomed to measuring and valuing the business. Among other things, has transformed into businesses (sonadamente lucrative cases) projects and initiatives that would not be crazy adventures and fanciful short time ago (delusional and ridiculous remain so, despite everything, but we have to take off his hat before the skill that some people have had to make these crazy ideas their way of life).

The most representative of this phenomenon are the Blogs. A very recent phenomenon, considering that hatching can put the world in 2006. Blogs are now a world in themselves, a new territory that puts us face a different reality, influential and constantly growing, every day 120,000 new blogs are created and 17 new post is published every second. U.S., Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany are the leaders of the blogosphere.  Statistical data of the blogosphere is the most interesting, and analyzing a bit better we can understand the magnitude of change we are experiencing and that goes beyond the technological impact. It is a social change, and certainly a transformation of the business-economic parameters.

Though not all blogs on the Internet as much as 2.0 now it seems. In any case, since they are the major “stars” of the moment, as they were in their day websites, e-commerce, flash applications, virtual communities, video streaming or the messenger, let’s say 4 things on the blogs:

• Anyone can write a blog, but it is always nice to have something interesting to explain.

• Your blog can be read worldwide, but, keep in mind, it’s possible anybody like it.

• With your blog you might get rich, but does not create everything you read about the easy money on the Net.

• Yo publish and to maintain a blog is completely free, as long as you consider that the time devoted to your task of blogger has absolutely no value.

There is life and business beyond the blog. However, it seems that whatever the business or the business idea or the perfect business plan, you must go through having a presence in the list of His Majesty Google. Much has changed since Google appeared in our lives, but Instead, the new era that the most famous and used to symbolize the search engines, began to make a long, long time, back in 1945, when Bush Vannaver published in The Monthly Atalantic an article that prompted a new way of understanding and sharing knowledge.

What a curious, right? That new things are, in fact, the updated version of things that already existed or who come from far behind.

The search for the perfect business is as old as the very concept of “business”. What suecede is that some time ago that the Internet came into our lives and our society as well as in our estrucutura mentally, to make us look with new eyes ideas that are not.

We agree that the Internet is essential in any business, from the most traditional to the more avant-garde. This does not mean that a truly prosperous business can exist only within, to, for and on the Internet. Certainly, the Internet is a channel of communication, a sales channel, a research tool, a wonderful shop window and a tool of great value if branding is to use well-known. But if we take e-commerce as an example, we see the actual data are, say, discreet. It is true that the trend is upward, but not yet live in a 100% digital environment.

There is something, however, that has not changed since the start of business. Something whose importance has not changed decisively industrial revolutions, social or technological. That “something” is the customer. A good business, a real good business is measured by customers. Hence stems everything else, from the Corporate Reputation to the Income Statement, via the Brand Image and Positioning in the Marketplace . Customers, actual or potential consumers, satisfied or dissatisfied, they are the ones who make good or bad business, which close or move away from perfection. Clients. Consumers. Neither more nor less. Because a business fails, does not live on ideas, but from customers.

And then come the times of crisis. And it gives the impression that the fog of the crisis it permeates all and nobody knows what to do, and the basic principles of business are invested, the bonds are upset, it is difficult to distinguish a good from bad news and, most serious However, nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. To understand a little better in this crisis, we recommend a visit to encarecidament blog Leopoldo Abadia, its analysis of the crisis NINJA is bright. But tell me, just in case we ever know what will happen tomorrow? No.

The crisis may increase the uncertainty, but uncertainty remains intact. If before we did not know what was going to happen tomorrow, now the situation is the same. And a few certainties also keeps intact is more, confirms and reinforces. And these are the certainties, if not a perfect business, yes to a viable business:

• It is better to engage in something we do well and find differentiation in how to do that trying to make a fortune on something that no master and whose only advantage is that it is “new”.

• The gap between the fortune and the debacle is the measure of risk. A high-risk business is ephemeral and, unfortunately, we do not know when the streak ends good. Excessive risk, failure insured.
  

• A business with certain guarantees of prosperity should keep a balance analog / digital reasonable. You should also keep a balance innovator / known reasonable. It is important that the market understands what is offered and can compare it to something already known.
  

• A great business must be, above all else, great for you. You should feel right at him and with him.Can hardly convincing if not convinced. It is very obvious, it is true, so this is a stone on which so many face.

• If there are customers there are business.

 

In a previous article said customers no longer exist. Does not exist in its conventional meaning, because in the environment of Internet 2.0, define customer is complex. A customer is not necessarily the one who buys a product or a service uses. A customer can be someone who consults a content, which read a blog, which shares a file, someone who weaves links in social 

networks, updating your profile, leaving comments at a forum. Customer is someone who bids on an item in an auction, which leaves their data in a form … Client, ultimately, is the person who, with his action and his relationship with respect to our business gives us a value (because it has no be money, although that value must be measurable and be transferred to economic value) that allows us to maintain our business, to grow and generate increased value of assets. That is, what the customer provides (information, links, comments, references, content, time, money …), this should enable us to generate wealth.

If there are no customers, no wealth is generated (we let everyone give meaning to the term wealth to create more convenient). The search for the perfect business goes through the search for the type of client suitable for generating wealth. Do you have a business?, It is neither good nor bad. You have’got customers?, That’s good. Preserve and be sure to strive to achieve more.

Deciding is not easy … but it is in your hands

 

 

Along a single day in a multitude of decisions are taken. If we stop to think about it we’ll be amazed at the thoughtlessness with which certain things are decided and the absolute paralysis that occurs before deciding further. When faced with any decision there are a multitude of factors that affect us and it is necessary to take into account that our personal and professional balance will not fail.

As the philosopher said “common sense seems to be the best well-distributed, as everyone says possess in abundance.” But he also says that “common sense is the least common sense.”

There is no doubt that common sense is a basic ingredient in decision making. What happens is that neither common sense is the magic wand to make correct decisions. Common sense is useful and necessary, but there is a high dose of specific knowledge that determines what is the common sense is needed in what situations and when. If we take, for example, an engineering problem whose solution we apply common sense, it is logical to think that common sense is pervaded by a profound knowledge in the field on which we must decide. The temerity to believe in a position to decide on any matter by the autoconvencimiento it possesses an extraordinary sense is a dangerous trap.

Where does this lead us? To think that common sense has degrees of expertise and lots of application and that when it comes to surround yourself with a good professional team is the best combination that form the common sense and talent.

 That special combination of talent and common sense can provide what we call knowledge and has become the true value, in the most important asset, available to organizations today.

It is no coincidence that in the instability that presides this time, knowledge quoted upward in the corporate market and that, after many years of talk of Human Resources, is finally tilting the balance more toward humans than inputs. Angel Arbonies said that true knowledge management is achieved when you start treating people as an end, not as a resource. And that change in approach, full of common sense, has led the business corporations to look to their professional trying to discover what their talents and under what conditions can be more valuable to the company.

Many companies have found that is the talent of their team the real differential factor can be placed over their competitors. And that “revelation” has triggered programs and strategies to ensure loyalty and talent, because a good professional who is not comfortable in an organization is a potential target of a competitor.
The techniques of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for the management and customer loyalty, are aimed at the very fabric of human enterprises to manage and loyalty talent internally. It is the TRM (Talent Relationship Management), a term coined by the prestigious firm of Nicholson International Headhunting, in an analysis carried out among numerous companies on five continents, has drawn up a list of the factors to which the talents of a company are more sensitive:

1. quality of managers
2. good organization
3. possible mergers and alliances
4. level of compliance with its expectations
5. individual factors of motivation

No Business Plan that endurance or strategy that will hold or that goal is met if the people involved in their dynamics do not believe or do not feel motivated to do their best in the draft in which participating. It is not enough that professionals are well paid, it is necessary to consolidate a talent emotional attachment to the company.

At the time of publishing this article from the summer weather in the final straight, which means that it is autumn in the business world. Fall brings the Business Plan, his Serene Majesty the Business Plan. This does not mean that until now been absent from our lives, but the review of the Business Plan of autumn is crucial because there was not much time or opportunity to take action to make the numbers vary considerably. 

Fall is also time to effect coups, and announcements unexpected surprise maneuvers to shake the markets, the Stock Exchanges, shareholders, readers of the daily economic and employees themselves.

Some of the big business (mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances …) have been brewing under the summer to be the center of attention in the autumn. Wanted lever and strategies that increase or restore lost confidence. It’s the time of harvest. To give just one example sufficiently representative of the news of the fall, Google had just launched on September 2, Chrome Google browser, which can be considered a bombshell on the whole rule.

There are many, many important decisions metidas in a Business Plan, but what really important in the spreadsheet that is hosting our Business Plan are not the formulas or the numbers themselves as absolute values. The numbers are not democratic, nor are all equal, nor have the same value, not even the fact that some are bigger than others are given to those most important to them. The Business Plan is a planning exercise and weight, both in the principles, as in the development, and in the explicit and implicit conclusions to be drawn from it. In this document, as in any strategic document of a corporation not only must know how to write, you also have to learn to read and, therefore, like to develop any type of document, we have to think about the reader, you have to think in the market, we must think about the customer.

Because of this Master Plan derived everyone else, the five senses are limited to apply in its drafting and, as with all decisions are taken, most are far more transcendent, meaning that more and better we must apply the common sense . Analysis – Diagnosis – Target – Strategy – Action Plan – Budget, that is the cadence logic that leads us to the construction of the Business Plan.

Start a Business Plan by putting numbers in boxes or developing ways to reach a predetermined outcome, it would be like taking a pile of bricks and begin applying plaster and paint to return to left in the battery, then build the foundations of the house, erecting The basic structure of columns and floors, placing furniture and, ultimately, take back the previously painted bricks and make them fit into the set and finally reviewing the boards to disguise the gaps and give the appearance of unity to the final outcome. With this method the end result is not a house, is a decorated fragile and that does not hold either the first blizzard, a setting in which no one can live.

In a large company (although this is not a necessary condition), a Business Plan can also be the battleground where occurring differences of interests, power struggles and personal ambitions. The Business Plan, in short, can be a dream or a nightmare, and in either case, their development tends to be accompanied by a few nights sleeping whit nightmares.

 Shareholders, managers, directors, employees, competitors, customers … they must all be taken into account, embedded in the relevant concepts and properly evaluated and weighted so that the end result is something ALIVE.

The Business Plan, as well as the organizational structure of a company, is dynamic, not static. Business Plan with an unshakable will of a Business Plan is dead and therefore represents a dead company.

The days are shorter and the feeling is enhanced by night shift schedule which takes place towards the end of October in most Western countries. It is the night before and the feeling of arriving at the office at night and leave it at night will also becoming increasingly widespread.

Autumn is a season of muted colors that, as it progresses on schedule, are always bathed by the cold light of our desktop lamp. However, no matter how difficult it is the present scenario, no matter how complicated they are to take decisions, do not forget that the world in all its splendor, is still out there.

Doing business in periods of crisis

Doing business goes hand in planning and making decisions. But go ahead that planning is not considered a science adivinatoria, nor an act of prestidigitation, but one of the main supports that a company has to navigate better in an unstable environment.

There are many companies with planning departments and areas, but here we are talking about a lot more planning staff, that we can all do to gain efficiency at work and trying not to be overwhelmed by the changing conditions around us inside and outside the company. We also understand the planning and the ongoing exercise to build interactive relationships between our capabilities and the environment around us.

It’s very different business environments in stable or unstable environments:

Stable environment:

The markets are mature, the picture is ongoing socio-economic and technological changes that affect us have already been treated or are treated with ease without causing major impacts on social life. Business flow, which they do operate without excessive shocks, and those that do not fail for reasons typical and acquaintances.

The planning is understood as the design of actions to organize resources and efforts to achieve certain results in a time scale divided into “x” phases. The phases are sequential in time and are divided into 3 groups: short, medium and long term. Based on the established planning, collective work is arranged to suit her and get the expected results.

Internal and external conditions are subject to few alterations or, alternatively, to alterations easily predictable and therefore the exercise of projecting results lets assume a reasonable level of security in the approaches of medium and long term.

Volatile environment:

Emerging markets are very new or not even exist as such (there is no critical mass, there is no habit of use, there is no need, there are powerful barriers to entry …), society is shaken by movements economic, technological and cultural dynamics normal in all areas of relationship of humans, leading to break new models of which only started to learn.

The prosperous business can enter into crisis, and can reap great business successes, or business ideas for which no one bet or half penny under normal conditions. But is that unstable environments are not subject to normal conditions.

Planning is an exercise in adaptation to the environment, requiring large doses of research, analysis, distillation of information. So the first and most important of the planning is the mental planning.

Nothing is static and our ability to surprise us is so valuable in this learning as it is in a child who is discovering the world. Children learn more and more of what we surprised them and encourages them, what living as a novelty pleasant and enjoyable in its growth. That is why teaching methodologies have been increasingly entering the game as a tool for learning.

If you are engaged in the business, whether employed or self-employed, business is big or small, whether global or local, whether or oligoempresario modest entrepreneur, you are in a constant learning period. And if you do not feel well, should feel it, when you consider that no longer needs to learn is the principle of order. So, since this is to learn, the better deal with optimism, constructive spirit and the most entertaining way possible. Think this way, nobody will guarantee success, but if you enjoy working to achieve, that enjoyment is what nobody can ever take away.

In an unstable environment intuition is a good ally to the business, why ignore intuition?. The intuition is the ability to envision solutions to problems based on observation and learning, conscious and unconscious, of everything that surrounds us.

When there is stability plan is to use proven formulas to address situations known. If stability does not exist, nor tested formulas and then the “trial and error” is the only method for building formulas. Planning in an unstable environment is put in time and space tasks, resources and actions designed to test and see the results of those tests. For this reason, here stages of planning can also be “x”, but the division of time into short, medium and long term does not exist.

Planning the short term, the tests are done and learn from the results, and then come back to the short term.The volatile periods can be long-stage full of tight deadlines.

Businesses in unstable environments, and at times we are living environment is quite unstable, they face many difficulties, true, but to have that as trying to take total control does not work, opening a fantastic door to the imagination, creativity and innovation.

We live in a time of crisis, true. t was expected to last for quite some time, maybe a year or two, or longer true. The investments have fallen, the capital is scared and hiding, right. It is infinitely more difficult to obtain credits, subsidies, grants, venture capital, even moral support, also true. Low consumption, low saving, spending is concentrated on the most basic and essential, true, true. So if you have in mind to mount a business, if you’re giving lap launching a project, if you round the head by taking the decision to take the plunge and launch their own adventure, it can be a great time to do it . Surely take to repeat a situation like this, where businesses have consolidated and emerging challenges before them and similar opportunities. Equality in the business world does not exist, but there are moments of greater inequality than others. Now it’s one of those moments.

Marketing and Comunication in the 2.0 Enterprise

 

On the Internet 2.0, Web 2.0, with many in this web social networks, thematic communities, participatory forums and hundreds of billions of blogs, the banner (in any form)… do you have something to contribute besides appropriating a valuable space on our screens?

 Is the banner friend or enemy?  The time of the banner format as king of online advertising rose. We speak of the banner as a concept.

In a previous post here in Wonderbusiness, said that Marks should have a dialogue with consumers. It is not enough displayed and taught, we must find a way to get to face to face. That is not easy. And one of the reasons why it is not easy because Marks have no custom or method of dialogue with the consumer.

From the newsroom to the bloggersroom.

A company spoke with the consumer through their products and services. Here’s how it has always spoken.And also through each and every member of his team.

The Marketing, Communication, Advertising, are tools to the Company, serving the brand. Those are your tools, but their arguments are others: quality, innovation and commitment.

Now is the time to understand the dynamics of the market and communication is different. That means that the Media (the traditional Mass Media) are neither the only disseminators of information or the most qualified opinion formers.

Companies, however, continue to press their rooms, still convening press conferences and carrying out actions of PR with the fundamental objective of attracting the attention of the media. Packaged messages for them and hope that, through them, reach the public and causing a favourable effect.

But at this point, everyone assumed the relevance, importance and impact of blogs and, therefore, of bloggers. And this reality has not yet been integrated by companies in their strategies and actions for Communication and PR. We have not yet seen (and, if any, we have no news of it) no room bloggers on the web of large corporate firms (small or not), why not convenes bloggers to press conferences or acts of PR? We know that the voice and the opinion of bloggers is important, so we are not doing or demagoguery, populism or even sinning opportunism. This is assuming the current reality and act consistently in line with it.

We know that technology, digital society has a huge impact on the way we live today. However, the technology is not what matters. What matters is are the changes caused by technology by opening doors, eliminating distances, equalizing opportunities and making audible voices.

We’d start seeing a paragraph in any corporate website that says’ room bloggers. We’d love to find a campaign banner (drawing that have not yet entirely dead) from any recognized brand with the message “We have opened our bloggers room , Visit us.” That would begin to demonstrate that the dialogue of Brands with the consumer would be taking a new momentum.

The difference between advertising and participation.

Es una diferencia enorme. It is an enormous difference. And there is a difference of magnitude, is a conceptual difference.

Companies, Marks, Advertisers, do you think interesting open your doors to Web 2.0? Do you think that your relationship with the Company and the market would improve if put in place strategies aimed at Social Media as Mass Media?

The Internet 2.0 we live is participatory , is the content and opinion generation age, is the knowledge sharing time. And both the generation of opinion and content, such as share it with millions of people occur at high speed. Someone thinks and someone listens. Many speakers, many listeners and many active role in the confidence of the views of content to those who have access. Let’s say it’s the digital version of mouth-ear. To this we have come to be known as Buzz Marketing,

 

The Buzz Marketing is good, like the Sustainable Marketing, the social Marketing, the blue Marketing, or any other. But the essence is not in marketing, advertising or dissemination we do, but what they really do is to generate a stream of opinion and our customers have reason to believe in us as a company, product or brand.

Returning to the classics, for this reason that they are, we could say that never Companies have had the opportunity to integrate their clients in the value chain that once defined Michael Porter.

Participation generates real value and, moreover, is a fantastic axle to turn it on strategies for Marketing and Communication and Publicity campaigns. The Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing not kill, they are not a threat to advertising, quite the contrary, encourage and enhance new approaches that can achieve better results with the indispensable ally who is always Creativity. Of course, all this new environment not only requires new strategies, also requires new forms of organization and work within enterprises. A different dynamic.

The Mass Media themselves are becoming receptive to the Social Media. Starting a transit to a different way of understanding the information and journalism. It is possible that in the not too distant future, the Media as we know them today have been transformed into platforms for bloggers, social networks of bloggers who are covered by a badge of credibility and trust (which must have been earned with their good work ), Ie covered under a brand, offered to readers today and think of the world.

We launched an invitation from Wonderbusiness.

• We invite companies to think about how to start your room bloggers. And more, we invite companies to think of a figure in his team who is the responsible or his relations with Bloggers (like the figures are assumed Responsible Media Relations Manager or Investor Relations).
• We invite all readers of this blog, whom we thank for their interest and for the kindness of continuing our work to bring us, and share whit us, his vision.

After all, we are what we share, do not you think?

Clients no longer exist…

 
The reality is this: customers no longer exist. The concept of customer has changed, what has changed so much that we prescribed.  And this is not a relativist assertion that makes sense only when we talk about Web 2.0. In any case, we can say that in this society 2.0 client no longer exists.

Instead of talking about customers, talk about guests. Why? Because it is evident that the balance between supply and demand, between buyers and sellers, bidders and among plaintiffs, is a balance that has changed sign. Whatever the economic or industrial sector, which dominates the balance is demand, not supply.

Some time ago we started seeing the first signs of this reality.What happens is that the first signs are not easy to recognize. And also true that economic and social actors are reluctant to let snatch their dominant positions.

We have moved from the age of domination of the Corporations to the authority of Consumers. That gives rise to a new paradigm in which the dominance exercised by these corporations in the market, gives way to a very different situation. A situation in which neither more nor almighty Holding has secured its leadership, nor their benefits or their future. Perhaps one of the first signs, scandalous and monumental was the collapse of Enron (it may not be agreed and many of Enron…) and the debacle that dragged Arthur Andersen. But those signs were very dramatic and the consequences suffered were the result of the worst possible business practices, the total lack of ethics and the perverse effects of unbridled ambition combined with the feeling of absolute power and impunity.

That customers will no longer exist has nothing to do with bad business practices or business. Not at all. That customers will no longer exist has to do with social evolution, with the saturation of supply, with rising consumer awareness that it is he who has the final word, and technological development which has enabled access ” almost universal ” Internet. The Web 2.0, social web, is a phenomenon still very young, but it is proving that when we all have the same (or nearly the same) possibilities to express ourselves, act and share knowledge, views and decisions, then the balance is clearly leans toward the consumer, to the customer.

Once again, is not a new phenomenon. It’s just a phenomenon known and recognized, but now it is a large scale, now is global, many are now interconnected phenomena.

If we have something to sell, something to offer, the better that we take the trouble (and let us show humility) to understand that the consumer who will take the decision or not, coming to us to buy it or go elsewhere. We must therefore do our best our work as best they can manage our house, and offer better and clearer information to decide whether our guests come, have at their disposal regarding need.

Customers no longer exist. Now we are all guests. And if guests want to come and when they want, no one can compel them to come, nobody can retain them if they do not want to stay and, most importantly, nobody can force them to return if they have not liked our hospitality.

Guests rather than customers. Therefore, instead of hosting providers. So things are in today’s society, in the current market situation. We can call Web 2.0, Society 2.0, Consumer 2.0, or we can put the name and number you want, that will not change reality.

And if the customer as a concept has ceased to exist, what about many models and a lot of strategies developed on the basis of the search, capture and customer loyalty and what happens to segmentation, targets, habits consumption, profiles of consumers, loyalty plans…? In future articles we will talk about that.For now, let’s say it is good time to start thinking that things can and should be otherwise.