05/02/2009 by Stephen Coe.

 I have spoken on several occasions of the opportunities that arise during a downturn. We at Balmoral Strategy Development firmly believe that decisive bold strategies  in a downturn cycle have the capability to redefine a market and generate long term competitive advantage for those with the will and determination to answer the call to action.

 Consider the following as a bold alternative to retrenchment

 Five point action plan

1. Assess risk and exposure and put the necessary mitigation in place.
2. Assess competitiors exposure and vulnerabilities.
3. Brainstorm for opportunities to take advantage of competitor weakness, look forward not back, focus firmly on emerging customer needs and indistry trends. 
4. Re-assess competencies, determine what needs to be strengthened or acquired to gain competitive advantage.
5. Develop action plan and implement.

Each of the above has many elements , particular attention needs to be paid to risk and competitor reaction

As usual all comments welcome - Stephen Coe, Director Balmoral Strategy Development Limited

Posted in Competitive Advantage, Trends, Customer Insight, Business Strategy, Competencies | Print | No Comments »

15/01/2009 by Stephen Coe.

We all know the traditional methods of segmenting markets, that is by customer buying behaviour. Quite often many companies fall short due to a lack of hard market data and as a result most fall back into a standardised industry segmentation used by everyone, that ultimately provides no new insight and white-space.

At Balmoral Strategy Development Limited we look beyond the obvious. We take into account developing trends and emerging needs to project possible buying behaviours of the future. With this approach we create new market segments that cut across many products, services and geographies.

The insights gained in effect redefine the market, provide the company with a direction and early mover competitive advantage.

As usual all comments welcome - Stephen Coe, Director Balmoral Strategy Development Limited 

Posted in Competitive Advantage, Innovation, Strategy Process, Trends, Customer Insight, Business Strategy | Print | No Comments »

30/12/2008 by Stephen Coe.

As we come to the end of the year and personal thoughts turn to new year resolutions, I would urge you to consider the same for your business.

Over the last few weeks I have spoken of the need for a business to have its value proposition aligned to customer needs and to embed a process that promotes innovation.

The last weeks of the year offer several examples of businesses who have failed to do just that. Businesses that grew fat on the good times and who failed to recognise changing customer needs.

Challenging times represent opportunities for the bold and innovative. There is an old saying that to stand still is to fall back , we at Balmoral Strategy Development believe that to be particularly relevant in times of economic downtown.

History has shown that recessions provide opportunities for innovators to overturn orthodoxies and established orders and that even market leaders are vulnerable if they fail to meet the new challenges.

As usual all comments welcome - Stephen Coe , Director Balmoral Strategy Development Limited

Posted in Innovation, Economy, Trends, Customer Insight, Business Strategy | Print | No Comments »

24/12/2008 by Stephen Coe.

First of all I would like to extend Season’s Greetings to all readers of this blog, I wish you all well.

As we approach the end of the year, I would like to ask those in retail to consider this. As you reflect on what has been a extremely difficult last quarter, take some time to understand what exactly has sold and what has not. Do this not from a product viewpoint, but from the service or need that the product provides.

At Balmoral Strategy Development Limited we believe that understanding these customer needs is the first step towards shaping a business model, which provides significant competitive advantage.

So make it a new years resolution to look at your sales figures in this way and we are sure that new opportunities will be revealed.

As usual all comments welcome - Stephen Coe, Director Balmoral Strategy Development Limited 

Posted in Competitive Advantage, Economy, Customer Insight, Business Strategy | Print | No Comments »

17/12/2008 by Stephen Coe.

Customer needs evolve, but all to often many companies fail to develop their product to meet those needs. Many companies stick to their original business model because it is what they know and it has served them well in the past. They still see the sale of a product itself as the cash generator and all too often fail to recognise the opportunities that surround it.

These very opportunities are usually service based and as such provide the potential for real differentiation. Never has this been more the case than for High Street retailers struggling to compete with the Internet box shifters.

At Balmoral Strategy Development Limited we believe that every product sold has an attached service, which can be added to provide  customer value and competitive advantage. Our strategy processes delve deep into emerging trends and involve deep analysis of the customer. This approach provides insight into ‘pain points’ and is the starting point for a differentiated strategy, which has an innovative business model at its core.

As usual all comments welcome - Stephen Coe , Director Balmoral strategy Development Limited , Leicester, UK 

Posted in Competitive Advantage, Innovation, Strategy Process, Trends, Customer Insight, Business Strategy | Print | No Comments »

24/11/2008 by Stephen Coe.

Every company collects information on its customers in one way or another. Many use very sophistication CRM packages and build up large databases of all number of facts and figures. They can tell you almost in an instant the last time Customer ‘A’ purchased Product ‘X’.  all very useful in the right context, but when it comes to developing a company strategy, then such data becomes much less relevant.

At Balmoral Strategy Development we believe that data should lead to intelligence and by that we mean ‘Insight’. Insight into pain points and unmet needs.  Insights, which point the way to new innovative and differentiating value propositions.

We recommend a process similar to that below, provides significant benefits and provides competitive advantage. 

Data gathering (CRM) -  Data synthesis (formalised, workshop based) - Intelligence and Insight - New Value Proposition.

As part of all strategy development processes at Balmoral Strategy Development we advocate the embedment of a such a process as a key enabling strategy.

As usual all comments welcome - Stephen Coe , Director Balmoral Strategy Development Limited 

Posted in Strategy Process, Customer Insight, Business Strategy | Print | No Comments »

22/10/2008 by Stephen Coe.

To established companies, the threat posed by new upstarts entering their markets is a recurring problem. However established players have something that no new upstart can ever have, that is Customer Knowledge.

So what do I mean by Customer Knowledge? It is the collection insights built up over the years, it is the understanding of the customer needs both articulated and unarticulated, and it is the ability to meets those needs in a way that is profitable to the company.

Customer Knowledge provides the opportunity to proactively develop value propositions, which meet as yet unknown or emerging needs and provides significant competitive advantage. The lack of this knowledge represents a serious barrier to entry and disadvantage for any new would be entrant. 

At Balmoral Strategy Development, we have developed tools specifically designed to convert Customer Data into Customer Knowledge and we make the development of Customer Knowledge a cornerstone of every strategy process that we are involved with.

If you are interested in discussing this further please post a comment or send an email to stevecoe@balmoralstrategy.com

Posted in Customer Insight, Business Strategy | Print | No Comments »