Corporate Eye

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Archives for June 2008

Give Your Brand a Check-up

When was the last time you sat down and evaluated your brand’s health? I don’t mean just looking at sales numbers and net profits, I mean analyzing every aspect of your brand to ensure it’s reaching its full potential. I call this process a Brand Check-up, and it’s an essential part of your ongoing brand strategy.

Conducting a Brand Check-up isn’t difficult. The simplest way is to use a classic SWOT Analysis and analyze your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Many marketers these days devalue a SWOT Analysis, but I truly believe there is no better way to get all the details of your brand’s current position and to determine areas for improvement, concentration and growth than with a simple SWOT Analysis. [Read more…] about Give Your Brand a Check-up

What is Web 2.0? How is Business Using It?

You may have heard the Millennials generation using terms such as Wiki, Furl, Facebook, Flickr and wondered what are they talking about. These and more are components of Web 2.0, and no this is not a new Internet hardware architecture.

Web 1.0 involved companies, webmasters and individuals developing websites and posting various content. You could look at the content and maybe buy something online but little more. Then certain applications or apps began showing up that allowed you to add your own content to other’s websites, to interact with other visitors collaborate with team members and much more. The result uses of the Internet vastly expanded and Web 2.0 evolved.

The Future Explorations Network developed a Web 2.0 Landscape (you can download the PDF containing this image at their site).

It is likely that this Landscape is already out of date since new apps are appearing continuously. If you want to find out more about specific apps, go to the Centre For Learning And Perforce where you will see a display of the top 100 web 2.0 apps.

Now let us look at how organizations are using Web 2.0. McKinsey Consultants conducted a Web 2.0 survey of senior corporate managers. Key points from the survey include —

  • Respondents show widespread but careful interest in Web 2.0 trends
  • Expressing satisfaction with their Internet investments so far, they say that Web 2.0 technologies are strategic and that they plan to increase these investments
  • Companies aren’t necessarily relying on the best-known Web 2.0 trends, such as blogs; instead, they place the greatest importance on technologies that enable automation and networking.

While McKinsey’s survey presents corporate wide applications there are many smaller intra-corporation Web 2.0 uses such as project management, team building, best practices sharing and others.

In a recent executive survey of marketplace trends by Forum Consulting Web 2.0 was identified as a key trend–

Using Web 2.0 Technology: Now, Not Futuristic: Web 2.0 technologies are used for both internal collaboration and as an interface with suppliers and customers, enhancing communication, collaboration, and intimacy among employees and the marketplace. Web 2.0 is certainly not just for tech-savvy teenagers: 79 percent of organizations view the collaborative aspects of Web 2.0 as a way to increase corporate revenue and/or margins.

Businessweek offers a Tip Sheet for using Web2.0. I agree with most, but see item pointed.

There are many opportunities for using Web 2.0 but there are risks that intellectual assets may seep out to competitors. There must be a delicate balance between promoting innovative use of Web 2.0 applications and protecting corporate assets. A worthy read is Cisco’s Internet Postings Policy.

Now you are ready to blog, wiki, Digg, and Furl, but be careful out there.

Using Networking to Target Graduates

Are you looking forward to the milkround again?

Here’s a different approach to targeting particular students at particular universities that might just be what you’re looking for …

Web Worker Daily recently described a new tool (from Affinity Circles) to help Fortune 500 companies target specific graduates – down to particular universities, educational background, year groups or work experience – and communicate directly with their targets about job opportunities.

This works by harnessing the power of social networks. Members send messages about jobs or other opportunities to their peers, universities send announcements to members, and outside companies like pay to send job postings to potential candidates.

Why is this news? Surely graduates use Facebook and LinkedIn?

Affinity Circles say that an online community sanctioned by a university promotes a higher degree of trust than an open community such as Facebook or LinkedIn; and that because it is members-only, there has been an element of preselection by the university; and that because it is members-only there is more privacy for the candidate. No candidate is identifiable by the recruiter until they identify themselves as interested.

From the candidate’s point of view, it’s the online version of the old boy (and girl) network for getting a foot in the door to places that don’t need to advertise and to talk to other alumni at that company to find out what it is really like to work there.

For the companies who participate, it’s a way to find potential recruits who may not be actively looking for a job, or simply to tap into a group of preselected candidates, thus reducing recruitment time and costs.

So should you seriously consider this?

It looks as though the only universities that Affinity Circles have access to at the moment are US-based, so this won’t be useful for everyone.

And I wonder why Affinity Circles are promoting this to Fortune 500 companies; I would have thought that this kind of advertising could be useful to many other, smaller, companies as well.

Nevertheless, I think that this is potentially a very useful way forward, and I think that Affinity Circles have astutely identified the current problems with online recruitment: that there are too many job boards with too little preselection of candidates and that the current set of wellknown networks offer too little by way of targeting and privacy.

Their solution, to use existing private networking circles, is a good one. I wonder what private networks currently exist in British universities …

A Blanket of Certificates

“We never fail when we try to do our duty; we always fail when we neglect to do it.” This is one of the most famous quotes from Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts movement.


Lord Robert Baden Powell

How, though, do you measure how well a boy scout is performing or preparing to do his duty?

To answer this Baden-Powell came up with the merit badge scheme. This encourages scouts to reach a certain level of proficiency in a wide range of activities and a few are graded to show increasing levels of ability.

Scouts are encouraged to display each badge once it is awarded. Many sew them onto the arm of their uniform so that others can easily see their proficiencies.

Some, for reasons unknown, sew them onto their blankets.

Badge Collection
It is precisely this spirit of badge collecting and fulfilment of duty which governments are relying upon to help encourage businesses down the path of sustainability.
[Read more…] about A Blanket of Certificates

Microsoft – A Case Study in Failing to Meet Customer Expectations

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about the importance of meeting customer expectations when it comes to developing a brand. I thought I’d expound on that a bit more today by providing a classic case study example of a company that failed to meet customer expectations and whose brand suffered as a result – Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT).

Sure, Microsoft still leads the market with its Windows platform, but it’s once unbreakable stronghold has shown cracks of weakness in recent years. The biggest failure – Windows Vista. [Read more…] about Microsoft – A Case Study in Failing to Meet Customer Expectations

The Revolution In Corporate Training

Talent management is top on the lists of many CEO surveys.

Today’s workforce issues have the potential to impact business performance in the coming years, according to Deloitte Consulting LLP’s recent survey on talent management strategies. Almost three quarters (72 percent) of companies surveyed said they are concerned that the inadequate skills of incoming workers will negatively affect their bottom line. 2005 Talent Management Strategies Survey

As it is stated in Key Trends in Human Capital Report of Saratoga Institute, that in order to stay ahead in the competition, Organizations must rely on its people’s capabilities. In other words, Organizations have long known that they must have the best capable people in order to succeed in the competitive and increasingly complex global economy. Now, there is also awareness that Organizations must approach talent as a critical resource that must be managed in order to achieve the best possible business results and positioning over competitors.

[Read more…] about The Revolution In Corporate Training