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Caswell | Smith blog - Our blog is written by our senior strategy consultants who write on strategy, innovation and products that are creating value.
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P&G
Innovation model. September, 2007 Tags: P&G, brand management, innovation, outsource, design, customer |
| For consumer product manufacturers,
pay close attention to market leader P&G. Three relatively recent
changes to their strategy include: I. sourcing, II.design and III.customer. Sourcing: P&G has long been recognized for their research and development prowess. However, single digit sales growth and increase in competition from private label products in discount mass market retailers necessitated making a change. P&G had 7500 researchers on staff innovation had stagnated. P&G’s new strategy is to outsource and leverage the talents of up to 1.5M researchers, inventors. Their goal is to source 50% of new ideas outside of the company. This is effective for several reasons.
Design: P&G recognizes that to build value for consumers, they will have to innovate on all fronts. They have begun working with top design firms to create ways to differentiate their products from a design perspective. The design of the products are being engineered to add value and provide additional benefits for the consumer. Customer: P&G is not just asking their customers questions, they are going home with them to observe how their customers are using their products and their competitors products. The close a company can get to the consumer, the quicker they can modify or create products that add more value. |
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Microsoft
to COPY google. June, 2007 Tags: mergers, yahoo.com, microsoft.com, YHOO, MSFT, GOOG, Microsoft, Bill Gates, Yahoo, Google, YSM, MSN Live |
Microsoft has assembled a team of twenty or more Internet developers who’ve been assigned to create Microsoft’s next generation search engine. The team is reportedly based at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Details
on the project are hush however we have learned that the search engine
is a “horizontal” engine (so, it’s not limited to
a specific vertical like images.) To Microsoft: Please remember that
the customer all search engines has a third grade education on average,
meaning KEEP IT SIMPLE.
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Amp'd
wireless goes bankrupt. June 1, 2007 Tags: Venture Capital, Wireless, Due Diligence, Amp'd. web 2.0 investments, |
•
On
June 1, 2007, Amp'd Mobile filed for Bankruptcy protection in Delaware
court. Reportedly, the firm had raised over 360 million and owes debtors
over 100 million. Apparently, someone or rather everyone failed on the
task of due diligence and made a bad bet on a young entrepreneurial
executive team. Investors on the deal included RedPoint Ventures, Highland
Capital Partners and Columbia Capital.
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What
will Microsoft do to become #1 on the Internet? May, 2007 Tags: mergers, yahoo.com, microsoft.com, YHOO, MSFT, GOOG, Microsoft, Bill Gates, Yahoo, Google, YSM, MSN Live |
Microsoft
buying Yahoo for a cool 50 Bill? Clearly just rumor-mill to gain press
with respect to building MSN online advertising muscle. Bill Gates has
a taste for poker and he likes to bluff. Based on my own tests, Google
obtains at least 6 times the traffic over Yahoo. Buying Yahoo at those
levels would barely give Gates a mid level pair.
What should MSFT do? They should do what they do best and not do what
they do worst. Copy and improve. Think Apple Mac. With some of the smartest
technologists in the world, Microsoft should be capable of creating
an algorithm that recreates Google search-du-jour. And developing the
interface is clearly within Microsoft's arts and craft capabilities.
So why has Microsoft "fallen and cannot get up," with their
Internet pursuits to date?
Reasons:
Swagger - when competing with MSFT a few years ago,
I heard from my customers that team Microsoft - was making waves around
town with a technology silicon chip on their shoulder. Their stock value
and monopoly on the desktop success went straight to their heads and
gave them a brain freeze. Microsoft came up "Webster" like
short on the need to listen to customers before creating products and
services. "Can you hear me now"?
Failed to meet customer's needs - Microsoft products
and services on the net have principally been focused on meeting their
own needs. Compare Google simplicity to MSN. Microsoft employees are
highly intelligent and highly complex but they create products with
too many bells and whistles. When MSN first looked at Google, they probably
thought - wow - a "second grader's" project. Simplicity over
complex is the key when dealing with the mass market.
Not moving fast enough - Microsoft often chases market
leaders. In a climate where things are moving so fast and new product
cycles are so accelerated, Microsoft tries to chase, then is forced
to abandon. They need to either, 1) do a better job of predicting where
the next big thing will come from and get there fast or 2) do a faster
job at copying and executing the market leader's strategy.
Microsoft is an acknowledged two horse pony, according to Balmer in
a recent article. They have Windows and they have Office. In buying
Yahoo, it was speculated that this would be their third horse. My recommendation
- Steve Ballmer and crew Copy, Be humble, Listen to the customer and
execute fast!
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Tesla
Motors - Can it be true? Electric cars that make you look good. May, 2007 Tags: teslamotors.com, electric cars, gas prices |
Prediction
- Teslamotors.com will be the first U.S. car company to go from zero
to hero in less than five years. Why? Because they have begun to change
the perception of electric vehicles. In doing so, they have given the
customer exactly what they want. A product that is energy efficient,
economically green, and gorgeous. Their first product is hot - An awe
inspiring rocket that accelerates faster than a porsche, looks hotter
than an aston martin and runs on electricity. You paid $4.00 per gallon
on fuel? Forget-about-it. First production run with a price tag of $98,000
sold out in four months with orders going to prominent celebrities including
George Clooney. Enough said. Check it out at teslamotors.com