Using Data to Add Value for Customers

Dateline: September 16, 2016 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Using big data to understand our customers is increasingly commonplace, but using it to add value to the actual product or service is less common.  Recently Ivey Professor Niraj Dawar published a blog at Harvard Business Review titled, Use Big Data to Create Value for … [Read more...]

Data Around the Customer’s Job to be Done

Dateline: September 9, 2016 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. We can know our customer much better than ever before with the data we have about them.  And we can use that data to create opportunities to delight our customers more than ever before.  Recently author Karen Dillon published a blog, that suggested successful innovation is … [Read more...]

Intelligence for Management Learning

Dateline: July 8, 2016 Avoiding a $500 million mistake is surely just as valuable as launching a $500 million product. Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Recently, Harvard Business Review published a blog post about The Right Way to Use Competitive Intelligence.  The article, by Benjamin Gilad, author, entrepreneur and former associate … [Read more...]

The New Divide: Digital “Haves” and “Have Mores”

Dateline: May 27, 2016 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Lately I've noticed that some companies have very engaging websites and others seem to have old, tired looking websites.  But all have websites.  Not that long ago, many did not have websites at all.  Then I ran across an article by a McKinsey Consulting team (James Manyika, Gary … [Read more...]

Process Reengineering with Machine Algorithms

Dateline: March 11, 2016 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.    Optimizing business processes, or reengineering. as it was called back in the early 1990s when it was made famous by my former colleague Dr. Michael Hammer, is back in vogue again, but with a twist.   In a Harvard Business Review article, Companies are Reimagining Business … [Read more...]

The New Innovation Agenda

Dateline: February 26, 2016 For many firms, the innovation agenda is now as much about human capital investment as delivering new products and services. Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.  Innovating is the new life breath of most organizations...Innovate or fade into oblivion seems to be the mantra.  How do successful companies keep the … [Read more...]

Connecting with Busy People

Dateline: Feburary 12, 2016 The world is competing for the attention of the most successful people. If you want to meet them — and break through and build a lasting connection — the best strategy is to make them come to you. Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.  Author and teacher Dorie Clark recently shared networking secrets of successful … [Read more...]

Fun-loving Warriors and Servants at Southwest Airlines

Dateline: January 8, 2016 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Today we are sharing an article from Julie Weber, vice-president of people at Southwest Airlines, published at Harvard Business Review.  The article, How Southwest Airlines Hires Such Dedicated People, describes how the airline hires about 2% of all their applicants, and makes … [Read more...]

Being Too Authentic Can Hurt Your Leadership Identity

Dateline: February 13, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. In a recent article at HBR.org, Professor Herminia Ibarra suggests that leadership identity is something we all have to carefully craft, and all too often we try to be authentic in a way that undermines our leadership opportunities.  In her article, The Authenticity Paradox, … [Read more...]

Data Security and the Twentysomethings

Dateline: February 28, 2014 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. This week’s idea looks at data security across age groups.  In a recent blog at HBR.org, titled, Do Millennials Believe in Data Security?, Editor Sarah Green shared some recent statistics about data security.  The SoftChoice survey found that, 28.5% of twenty-somethings keep … [Read more...]