The need to be proactive—to “disrupt before you are disrupted”—is a common theme among management and consulting gurus. The reality, however, is very different. All strategic moves are, to a degree, reactive. Without change in the environment forcing management to react—rethink, modify and adapt their strategies—companies have no incentive to…
A director of market intelligence at a Fortune 50 company called me last week. He wanted my advice about how to recharge the competitive intelligence process in his company. I have been getting more calls like that in the last six months than in the last decade. It seems that…
Everyone in the corporate world today wants to be considered “strategic”—especially marketers. To that effect, some leading Fortune 500 companies have renamed their marketing functions “strategic marketing.” This is especially popular with the consumer product industry and the MBA-laden leading brands. The only problem is that it doesn’t make the…