Jeffrey Phillips

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Addictive, exclusive, experience: Critical factors for new products or companies

Jeffrey Phillips

I had quite a day yesterday, meeting with a potential partner at Starbucks, getting my iPhone repaired at the Apple store and a number of other activities. Along the way I encountered a couple of very successful companies: Starbucks, where I met a potential partner, Apple, where I went to get some repairs done on my iPhone and Chik-Fil-A, which was down the hall from the Apple store.

Company 111
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Who is minding the change and culture store?

Jeffrey Phillips

In my last two blogs, I made the argument that given how fast change is happening, your strategy must incorporate and address external change and the ability to change internally. Otherwise, you are creating strategy that ignores exceptionally powerful forces that are creating change and shifting the competitive markets in real time. In the more recent blog, I wrote about what I consider the most difficult thing to change in an organization - its culture.

Culture 144
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Why you need a faster, more nimble culture

Jeffrey Phillips

I wrote a piece last week introducing the idea that change is strategic, and that strategy should consider change competency as a core competency. Change is happening so quickly and from so many different directions and dimensions that companies cannot create strategy without also preparing for and being ready to change. Companies cannot build static strategies that stretch over 3 or 5 years.

Culture 157
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Change Management is strategy and vice versa

Jeffrey Phillips

I was reviewing the website of a strategy consulting firm recently, and their focus on strategy and team alignment felt like the same old, same old. I read further to discover that they focus on passion and mission (hello Simon Sinek). But what struck me about their work is that they also focus on culture and change management. These latter two concepts were the things that got my attention.

Strategy 167
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Failure - learning or leavening?

Jeffrey Phillips

As with many other distinctions between large companies and startups, established products and new ideas, there are distinctions between types of failure. For most corporations, failure is abhorrent, because failure signals a breakdown in an existing product, risk, an inability or unwillingness to follow an established process. Failure is a loss of revenue, an added cost, a lack of judgement.

Learning 157
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Scaling a business depends on controllable factors

Jeffrey Phillips

One of my favorite musicians is (was) Warren Zevon , who had a great sense of humor and was also a good musician. You may be familiar with his song "Werewolves of London" but perhaps one of my favorite songs of his is " Lawyers, Guns and Money ". In the song, he describes what it will take to get out of a particular jam, and notes that neither lawyers, guns or money will get him out of his predicament.

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You can't burn data

Jeffrey Phillips

As the concept of digital transformation takes root, you may frequently hear comparisons between data and oil. After all, both are abundant commodities that can create value. This comparison was strong enough to lead Wired magazine to define data as the new oil in a magazine article some years ago. On the surface, this comparison seems to make some sense.

Data 157