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Learning from success, mistakes of big business – TheChronicleHerald.ca
IT IS possible for small business to learn from big companies. While many owners of small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, often take an “us versus them” attitude towards their larger business counterparts, there are some basic marketing principles that apply equally well to both big and small operations.
A critical part of any marketing strategy is the choice of target market that a firm takes on, with its relative offerings of product and service.
And it is possible to consider the actions of two Canadian business giants, Nortel Networks and RIM, in that discussion.
The Council of Canadian Academies released a report on innovation and business strategy in June. The report is a detailed analysis of how Canadian businesses rate in innovation and research and development internationally.
The report also features a very interesting discussion of the marketing actions of Nortel and RIM, how the two firms differed from their roots through to their strategic decisions, and how marketing strategy impacted the outcomes of their strategic decisions.
A basic part of Marketing 101 is determining how to choose a target market and how to fulfil its needs.
In many high-tech firms, companies use a more product-oriented approach than a market-oriented one, focusing first on their product and second on market needs.
It is hard to tell which came first with Nortel Networks, which had its roots in traditional markets providing telecommunications equipment.
This type of market approach in the information technology market (referred to as legacy equipment providers in the report) grew out of past markets and past market needs. To a great extent, traditional telecom needs are being met by the next generation of wireless technologies, resulting in a mix of old and new for firms such as Nortel.
The notion of old and new markets is an odd one that is based not on how long the market has existed but rather on whether or not the same market need is being served by new technologies or applications.
It is possible to use the analogy of the automobile industry, moving from horse and buggy to motorized vehicles. Both are transportation methods, but one is obsolete.
From a marketing perspective, the market for horse buggies has declined out of existence despite the fact that we have even more of a need for transportation (more people going longer distances) than we had back in horse and buggy days.
In other words, the need persists but how we fill the need as consumers or businesses evolves with changes in technology and lifestyle.
Nortel Networks, which has recently become one of Canada’s biggest corporate failures despite is premiere position in previous years in the IT industry, was heavily invested in providing equipment to corporate clients.
It carried a portfolio of products that were well regarded but slowly becoming obsolete.
Price drops as products become less popular, a process that has been forced into hyperdrive by offshore competitors whose cost structures are lower than ours.
The end result was a nasty fall from grace as Nortel struggled to reposition itself in more innovative markets.
RIM was born to be a research-oriented firm, grown with venture capital. This reality would create a fundamentally more nimble company with a much more research-oriented culture.
RIM caters to similar markets, but with new technological applications that are not yet mature.
However, RIM does have one critical flaw: it is mainly a one-product firm. The BlackBerry is what has propelled RIM into stratospheric profit levels and it continues to give RIM a strategic competitive advantage despite a growing number of competitors.
RIM is working the product life cycle in a very innovative and competitive way.
However, it will have to follow the BlackBerry with even greater innovations to keep its pre-eminent market position.
This requires continuous research and development, with more patent filings and a relentless search for the next big thing to fill the market need.
Which company was more competitive? Nortel was in its day, and RIM is today.
And that difference is part of the reason why RIM continues to succeed in the wake of Nortel’s fall from grace.
Karen Blotnicky is president of TMC The Marketing Clinic and a professor at Mount Saint Vincent University.
This is a great article to review and learn the ropes of building a world class business. More to come.
XO Offers ‘Ethernet Everywhere’ Guarantee – Phone Plus
XO Communications this week announced the launch of “Ethernet Everywhere,” a service availability guarantee ensuring its Carrier Services’ customers can obtain Ethernet services anywhere within XO’s coverage area. The company says this guarantee is the first of its kind by any nationwide service provider.
XO’s Ethernet access options range from 3Mbps up to 10Gbps and are used to support a variety of services such as private line, dedicated Internet access, and MPLS IP-VPN. Offered through the end of 2009, the guarantee is available to any Carrier Services customer that chooses up to 10Mbps Ethernet service within one of XO’s 42 Ethernet-enabled local access and transport areas (LATAs). Should XO be unable to deliver the service within the agreed upon timeframe to the requested location, the customer will receive a one-month credit equal to the value of the Ethernet service ordered.
Related Articles:
- Toshiba, XO Communications Certify Interop
- XO Streamlines Multilocation VoIP
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Great Service here
Juniper Research: Femtocell subscribers to exceed 15 million … – IntoMobile
Juniper Research: Femtocell subscribers to exceed 15 million during 2012 due to demand for improved 3G reception
By Dusan Belic on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 at 2:51 PM PST In Research
Demand for improved 3G reception will be a principal driving force behind the growth of femtocells in the next few years, with subscribers exceeding 15 million globally during 2012. According to Juniper Research, femtocells began as standalone units but will become integrated into the home wireless routers in future, to form a “multi function mix and match” home network services gateway.
Juniper’s report author, Howard Wilcox, said: “Surprisingly for some people, surveys such as that by Orange in March show that most mobile usage actually takes place from our homes. Poor indoor signal strength and slow web access are quite common problems faced by users. Femtocells offer an attractive solution – both for users and network operators who themselves can achieve economies through data traffic offload.”
The research company identified Western Europe, North America and the Far East & China to be the top three regions for femtocell subscribers in 2014. Moreover, they said that revenues from new, advanced femtocell services will gain traction as soon as 2011…
More information about the study titled “3G Femtocells and Beyond: Opportunities & Service Scenarios in the Home 2009-2014″ is available from Juniper’s website.
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Femto Cell has really good prospects especially to provide seamless connectivity in the home, enterprise and pretty much anywhere. It does help to offload the load on the carrier’s network as well.
The 4 Most Valuable Things I Learned in Business School
Great post – thanks! I’d like to add a comment on two of the points you raised:
1 – The reminder to consider opportunity costs is something I’ll take to heart. A lot of opportunities come my way, and I tend to jump on them without thinking through what else I could do with my time. Opportunity being the topic, I’ll throw in a favourite quote from that well-known management theorist, Ann Landers – “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.”
2 – I couldn’t agree more with your observation about the value of experience over credentials, and I’d add that you can (and should) invest in creating your own credentials, even if you have a good degree. When I was in university I had a co-op term and never went back to finish my degree – I just liked the world of work too much. (Funny, given that your post also talked about the value of a co-op program.) That was over 30 years ago, and in all the time since, no one (other than immigration authorities granting work visas) ever asked for my credentials, or even a resume, at least until a request came out of the blue this year. What’s key is to (a) regularly take the time to reflect on your experience and capture it (not just think about it!) and (b) find ways to demonstrate/share your growing experience and knowledge. Even in that first job, I didn’t hesitate to share what I’d learned through presentations within the company and to relevant groups around town. Later, I built courses to teach it to other people, and started getting asked to travel to conferences to speak. I did a lot of that, and eventually wrote a book that is widely used as a text in MBA programs. (Ironic, given that I don’t have a degree.) The point – lots of people are smarter, more articulate, or have richer experience than me, but even in the age of blogging and social media, a surprisingly small percentage of professionals take their *own* experience, distill an asset from it, and then do something with it.
I’m still glad that all four of my kids have, or are working on, their university degrees – I don’t want to sound like I’m saying that isn’t important, because it is, and increasingly so. But experience, and demonstrating that you’ve learned from it, counts for more than some might think.
This comment is already too long, so I’ll resist the urge to go on about the apparent conundrum of “you need the credentials before you can get the experience.” In short, it’s more cliché than fact.
Thanks again for the excellent post – I’ll be sharing it.
This a great experienced shared by this writer on business school experience. This will give you some insights on what is important to move forward
