LinkedIn

What’s behind the theme? It is fascinating to observe that an orchestra and a corporate enterprise have similar structures. Just as the harmonious music from an orchestra is formed by multiple instruments, in a corporate set-up, myriad activities leads to the creation of value that is exchanged with the customer for a price. All businesses look to achieve - and maximize - this exchange in all their activities, both internal and external. All successful companies at every stage of their evolution focus on being “market-led”. This is more crucial for start-ups, which otherwise have a fallacious tendency to be “technology - led”. The cost of unwinding wrong decisions that impact your market - and hence Customers - is so humongous that it can bring down entire organizations. How do I evolve a Business Strategy? • Frontend with your Customer Customers don’t need what they don’t need. Creation of the “correct” product is crucial to initial success as well as a momentum that is sustainable. An ill conceived product hangs like an albatross and greatly reduces survival viability of an enterprise. • Optimize Price-Value Exchange Selling is all about creation of exchange of surpluses – economists will teach you. Flipping that into a pricing strategy that is competitive yet not margin-dilutive is both a science and art. Pricing is not about being the cheapest – much rather it is about holding the ability to scale up a positive price-value exchange with customers • Promotion ≠ Advertising We live in a world of instant information, social media and word of mouth that spreads like bushfire. Promoting products or services in this world may appear simple yet crafting an optimal strategy becomes a key differentiator in both creating stickiness and customer resonance to the brand-story • Channel to Success The electronic market-place has created an explosion of channels that one could choose to reach customers.