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Manage to Meet Your Customers’ Needs

thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Managing at the right level is the most important element in effective management in the Age of Diverse Markets. In the prior mass markets era, companies had homogeneous markets, so they needed to plan and coordinate only at the executive level, with the rest of the company’s managers focusing on their respective functional specialties.

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15 Decisions That Can Undermine Your Business

Frank Sonnenberg Online

You begin to sell your luxury products in mass-market retail stores to boost sales. — You accept orders even though you don’t have enough product to satisfy demand — Rather than being upfront with customers, you pray no one gets upset with the delay. Remember… Half the truth is often a whole lie.

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The Future of You

Harvard Business Review

Having a great job does not guarantee your career success; your competence no longer depends on what you know; and being an affluent consumer matters less than becoming a sought-after product. Economic and technological changes are reshaping the nature of work. Self-branding is about being a signal in the noise of human capital.

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To Spur Growth, Target Profitable "Prosumers"

Harvard Business Review

In my teacher's mind, it was an investment in a future career. But my parents gave in, and purchased a beautiful viola that helped me sit 1st and 2nd chair in high school and college respectively, but doesn't help in my consulting career. They also are finicky about marketing ("how you market it").sometimes

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Hybrid Business Models Look Ugly, but They Work

Harvard Business Review

The advantage of hybrids is that they are a half-step that can help their developers manage long and difficult transitions, such as the one between generations of technology or the transition between careers. The challenge of hybrids is that they are only temporary half-steps, and so in retrospect they can look clumsy.

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Making Room for Reflection Is a Strategic Imperative

Harvard Business Review

For example, if youre just here to sell sugar-water, then "innovating" slightly new flavors of soda every few months, and finding novel markets to "sell" it in (read: competencies in product innovation and mass marketing) is probably good enough.

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Corporate Entrepreneurship: Turn Irony into Opportunity

In the CEO Afterlife

My friend’s students saw themselves as entrepreneurial thinkers, yet at graduation, most of them will begin their careers in a corporation. The change-makers are small- to medium-size enterprises that either lead niche categories or are hell-bent on knocking the big guy from the top rung of a mass market.