Image from Mashable.com
Everybody knows Steve Jobs.
Icon, innovator, brilliant entrepreneur and creator of “insanely great” products, Jobs was the founder and CEO of Apple.
Creator of legendary products like the Macintosh computer, iPod, iTunes Store, iPhone and iPad, Jobs founded the Disney beating Pixar Animations (which was later sold to the behemoth), and opened the much lauded Apple Store.
Bob Rogers with ASA Chairman Kevin Cheong
The founder of BRC Imagination Arts, Bob Rogers, has cut his teeth in designing and building numerous theme parks, museums, brand attractions and other thematic experience destinations.
Rogers’ 33 year old firm, BRC Imagination Arts, received over 250 international awards, including two Academy Award nominations and 17 Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) “THEA” Awards for “outstanding achievement in themed entertainment”.
Continuing along the theme of “Zagging” as a business strategy (ie radical but customer valued differentiation), I thought it would be interesting to highlight examples of businesses which apply such “Blue Ocean” strategies in their core value propositions. By offering something radical and unique yet deeply appreciated by their customers and other stakeholders, they are able to stand out in an increasingly hyper-competitive marketplace. This would mean offering a new innovation that isn’t seen in the existing marketplace and competing on different terms from incumbents.
As expected, many of these examples are in the mouth watering F&B industry, but there are also a few cases of consumer oriented innovation in other domains both digital and non-digital.
1) Gourmet craft beers in a hawker centre: Good Beer Company in Chinatown Hawker Centre. Fine hand-crafted beers in the comfort of your slipper and shorts anybody?
Small businesses need to learn to be like David when fighting against Goliath (source of image)
What can Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and independent free lancers do to build their reputations, enhance their businesses, and strengthen their reach? With limited resources and finances, how can these entities carve a space for themselves in an increasingly crowded market with competitors possessing deeper pockets, greater resources and fuller teams?
To stand a chance of winning the hearts and minds of consumers, small businesses need to take advantage of their nimbleness, flexibility and agility to outwit and outmaneuver the bigger boys. Competing along the same dimensions will only result in a sorry ending.
Daniel Goh of The Good Beer Company
Thanks to Daryl Tay, I had the chance to attend Social Media Breakfast recently. Held at The Loft in Chinatown, it was great listening to my buddy Daniel Goh of The Good Beer Company speak about his experience in setting up a craft beer stall in a hawker centre in Chinatown. Readers may know that I first wrote about the stall when it opened back in Oct 2011.
Before he ventured into being a specialty beer seller, Daniel was a PR professional who worked in diverse companies (including mine) as well as MNCs like Samsung and Blizzard Entertainment before he ditched his corporate togs for a hawker’s apron. He also manages (and still does) a pretty solid business and entrepreneurship blog called Young Upstarts (I’m a proud contributor).
It is interesting to note how contrarians thrive better than rule book followers. And Apple is just such a company.
Continuing on my theme of “Zag” as a business strategy, it is interesting to study how Apple differs from other companies. The darling of the digital world, Apple overtook huge oil conglomerate Exxon Mobil to be the world’s most valuable company last year.
“In a world of extreme clutter you need more than differentiation. You need RADICAL differentiation. The new rule: When everyone zigs, zag.”
That, in a nutshell, is what Zag: The #1 Strategy of High Performance Brands is all about.
Jeremy Lin sure knows a thing or two about scoring (courtesy of streetball.com)
Establishing clear goals is one of the most important things you need to do in any organisation which you work in. Otherwise known as objectives, goals provide an end point for one to aspire and work towards, providing purpose and meaning to any endeavour.
The analogy of sports provides the clearest example of goal setting. With a clear goal in place – kicking the ball through the goal posts, throwing a ball into a basket (who haven’t heard of Jeremy Lin?), or hitting a ball through an opponent’s racket – players and spectators alike would know where to focus their energies and emotions.
How do companies like 3M, Apple, Google, Xerox, Siemens and Grameen Bank continually generate game changing products and services?
What can large organisations do to retain talent while building innovative cultures?
The answer? Corporate Entrepreurship, which is also the title of a book by Thunderbird School of Global Management’s Robert D Hisrich and Claudine Kearney.
Courtesy of Choo Yut Shing
Wonder how LEGO manage to rule the roost as one of the world’s most successful brand?
On a recent visit to Toys “R” Us at VivoCity with my kid, I observed that there are more and more interlocking brick toys filling the shelves these days.
Inspired no doubt by LEGO, brands like Mega Bloks, Coko and Tyco Toys are now emulating the same success strategy employed by the 80 year old Danish company, albeit charging a lower price for their bricks.