Instant solution for Starbucks?
Fortune magazine is reporting that Starbucks is about to launch a new instant coffee product.
A question: will we be able to taste the difference between that and its existing range of drinks?
P.S. In fairness I think Reuters had this story first.
Regional bosses in global organisations are like squabbling siblings, desperate to get the attention of bigger bosses working hundreds or thousands of miles away at HQ.
They might benefit from reading IMD prof Cyril Bouquet’s tips on how to become a multinational’s pet foreign subsidiary.
His advice includes a strategy attributed to the CEO of the Australian arm of Yum! Restaurants:
Unlike other subsidiaries that like to import talent, his objective is to export three of his top people every year to other parts of the group. These people are good, they get recognized and the perception is that the Australian subsidiary must be doing something right. So when they need access to more funds, they have managed to build important pillars of influence that help.
Sounds like a clever idea: perhaps Australia’s remoteness from the rest of the world makes such ingenuity imperative.
Elsewhere:
Time to get the message on “masstige”
Is anyone doing well out of the recession? It was a question that emerged from this morning’s business session at the Portmeirion symposium.
One company might be: PZ Cussons, new owners of the Sanctuary spa range of products.
This is an “affordable luxury”, an attractive proposition at a time like this. Our attention was drawn to this development by Alice Sherwood , who introduced delegates to the concept of “masstige“: prestige for the masses.
A bit more sobering was a thoughtful talk from David Smith, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, who told us about his ambition to maintain high quality car manufacturing in the UK. As many as 75,000 jobs may depend on his business’s continued survival. (And he is at the prestige, not the masstige end of the market.) It was a welcome reality check in this rather surreal place.
Lynda Gratton of London Business School reckons that recession is calling into question the command and control style of corporate leadership:
Many people are now questioning the wisdom of placing so much power in the hands of so few. At the same time, insights from research in decision sciences and technological advances have shown that often the best decisions are made by an “intelligent crowd”, rather than one all-powerful individual.
This is a fissure in the norms of organisational life that could well lead to the acceleration of a more democratic and distributed decision-making process and the idea that leadership can be held by a wider group of people.
Her advice? “Bring diversity back on to the agenda.” I can’t agree more — but can’t see an imminent end to the autocratic reign of the “middle-aged men with similar backgrounds” (her label for the decision-making elite).
That said, her prediction that hard times will lead to more “virtual teams” — as opposed to face-to-face collaboration — is bang on.
Elsewhere:
US brands traditionally use the Super Bowl as a platform for lavish television adverts. But will recession dampen the marketing sideshow attached to American football’s premier event?
The Super Bowl draws about 140m viewers and will take place on February 1. Two Kellogg School of Management marketing professors — Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker — are diligently blogging about the behaviour of key marketers in the run-up to the game.
Prof Rucker says advertisers face two big challenges if they want Super Bowl exposure in the current economic climate:
First, can advertisers successfully deliver a message with the right tonality to resonate with consumers’ current emotions? This feat requires a strong understanding of the consumer mind and an ability to tailor a message to speak to the consumer. Brands might seize the opportunity of the day to accomplish this task, but I also suspect many will play it safe by ignoring the issue all together.
Second, can brands walk the tightrope of spending an approximate $3 million on a 30-second spot without looking wasteful?
At least two long-time Super Bowl advertisers — General Motors and FedEx — will be absent from all the hoopla this year. Prof Calkins thinks the troubled carmaker is making a “huge mistake”.
What GM really needs, now, is to get people to buy its cars. And the only way GM will get people to buy its cars is to give them a reason to buy. Simply put, GM needs to explain to people why this is a great time to buy a car.
More importantly, GM has to project confidence. The company has to be confident in its products and confident in its future.
The best way to project confidence and get the company moving is to invest in the Super Bowl and portray GM as a refocused, determined, confident company.
However, he is intrigued by talk that PowerAde has cooked up a risqué ad to lighten the gloom, saying that it would be a bold move given the fuss caused by Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” in 2004, which ensured that subsequent Super Bowls have been “about as titillating as reading Newsweek”.
Column: give me your attention
Almost three decades ago, the UK’s number one hit record at the start of the new year was “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders. “I gotta have some of your attention,” sang Chrissie Hynde, the band’s front-woman, alluringly, “Give it to me.”
That refrain proved very popular with teenage girls back then – at least at the parties I went to. They would sing it noisily. From the teenage boy’s point of view, paying attention was not the problem. It was whether that attention turned out to be welcome or not.
Companies are desperate to command our attention, too. It is not just their share of the market that counts, it is their share of people’s minds.
“At a certain point, everyone is in competition for your attention,” Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems’s chief executive, once told me. “Everyone is in competition for being able to sell you something, being able to appeal to you as a consumer.” So long as your customer is paying attention to you, your competitors are being ignored.
The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.
Column: sales people must get smart
Don’t you just love it when you come through the arrivals gate at the airport and you see a driver there waiting for you, holding up a board with your name on it? Personally, I like it if they are also wearing a tie. And a cap. I am not saying that they have to wear a cap. I’m just saying that I like it.
How much is that service worth to you? Maybe you don’t always bother with such luxuries when you are going on holiday. But, if it is a business trip and your company is paying, do you know what price you will be charged?
Didn’t think so. You wouldn’t expect the individual customer to know. Your travel people can handle it. But what if the travel company that they are buying from is unable to price that service accurately? Good news for your procurement guys: they can hammer out a better all-in deal. But the travel company, through its undisciplined approach to selling, is throwing away a large amount of money.
The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post c0mments below.
Tom Peters has given managers some tips on how to carry themselves during a recession.
“Banish gloomy from your personal demeanor,” he suggests, before adding that a sunny demeanour “is pretty stupid, too: who do you think you’re kidding?”.
A determined look – “gettin’ on with gettin’ on” – is best, he concludes. Inevitably, there is a garish PowerPoint slideshow.
Elsewhere:
Stefan Stern writes a column on Tuesdays on management. He is winner of the 2010 Towers Watson award for excellence in HR journalism, and has previously won awards from the Work Foundation and the Management Consultancies Association.
Ravi Mattu is the editor of Business Life, the FT's management features
section, and a former editor of the Mastering Management series. He joined the FT in 2000 from Prospect magazine
Lucy Kellaway writes a column on Mondays on work , poking fun at management fads and jargon and celebrating the ups and downs of office life. She is also the FT's Agony Aunt.
Luke Johnson writes an FT column on Wednesdays on entrepreneurship. He runs Risk Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and is chairman of the Royal Society of Arts.
Lucy Kellaway, FT columnist and associate editor, offers her solution to your workplace problems in a column in the Financial Times. In the online edition of her Dear Lucy 'agony aunt' column, readers are invited to have a say too.
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