Leadership & Management

Leadership & Management

Hypnotic Shower Moments

Graham Birkenhead, October 7 2021

When I was a child, I had a VERY active imagination (I guess like a lot, if not most children).  I had limited exposure to the world, yet that didn't stop me.  Every new experience provided opportunities to ask more questions, everything I saw on television (even in black and white) or heard on the radio, or conversation overheard, gave me more inp...

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Leadership & Management

Why would anyone ever work for YOU?

Graham Birkenhead, August 12 2021

Unemployment figures continue to improve; we have a little way to go before we are back to pre-pandemic levels, but we are moving in the right direction.   Currently, unemployment in Canada is 7.5% (1.5m) and in the US it is 5.4% (10m).  These figures will include people who are ‘looking’ for work; they won’t include the people who could work but f...

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Leadership & Management

Context IS Everything

Graham Birkenhead, June 29 2021

Whenever the name Thomas Edison is mentioned, people often think about ‘the man that invented the light-bulb’, and most are aware of the many variations of his famous quote about trying to make the lightbulb work: “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”.

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Leadership & Management

Risk Joining the Lemmings

Andrew Penny, June 8 2021

Success in business is a rare thing, in fact 70% of businesses fail within their first 10 years. And that number holds true for all types of business. Of those that don’t fail, only a few really soar. Why am I saying this? Simply to suggest that you be careful when you think about emulating your peers or you may well be joining a pack of lemmings h...

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Market Strategy

What Did SaaS Companies Ever do for Manufacturers?

Jelena Franco, May 25 2021

Twenty years ago, Salesforce invented the phrase “Software-as-a-Service” or ‘SaaS”. Since then, the growth of this concept has been phenomenal. A few years ago, I was collating Latvian SaaS companies into a single database to facilitate investors. Now, categorizing SaaS enterprises is not a straightforward activity as they fall into so many differe...

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Leadership & Management

A Bowl of Cultural Soup

Graham Birkenhead, May 11 2021

There really is nothing quite like a good bowl of soup; warming, nutritious and tasty. The thing about soup is that there is almost an infinite variety of possibilities of what you can make – whether it is using a different combination of ingredients or a slight variation of the same ingredients. Adjustments to the cooking time or temperature, or...

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Channels

Why Most Exporters Fail or Die a Slow Death

Andrew Penny, April 6 2021

Imagine you are running your country’s summer Olympics team. You have athletes in almost every discipline – swimming, water polo, skateboarding, volleyball, boxing, rugby, fencing and so on. As head of the team, your mandate is to win medals. In the next Olympics, your athletes will be competing against the best in the world. This is no longer loca...

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Market Strategy

Asset Baggage

Andrew Penny, March 23 2021

When you go to a new market, you consider both your best opportunities to obtain new clients and protect yourself from the competition. If you can identify your competition's asset baggage, you can rest assured you will find your sweet spot.Asset baggage includes a company's brand, staff, IT systems, distribution network, marketing collateral, inve...

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Market Strategy

The 5 Ways to Grow Your Business

Andrew Penny, March 9 2021

Most of the time when people come to us they are looking for help to grow their businesses. And when you think about it, there are actually only five ways to grow a business. Here they are: OneDouble down on the niche that you already serve. This can be done through better-selling processes, better marketing processes, improved channels, but essent...

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Leadership & Management

Symptomatic Misdirection

Graham Birkenhead, February 9 2021

A few years ago, while training for a triathlon, I went to see my doctor about a pain in my knee. He prodded and poked, and did various scans and investigations, all of which identified nothing in particular. Eventually, he referred me to a physiotherapist who was adept at understanding, and very importantly resolving, strange aches and pains.

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