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Ralph Mroz

Ralph Mroz
Since 1978, Ralph Mroz has managed or implemented nearly every step of the marketing process. His experience spans hands-on tactics to corporate strategic planning, encompassing large corporations, small companies, as well as start-ups.

How To Effectively Organize Your Research Activities

Most organizations collect information about their environment in a multitude of places, and usually they are not coordinated. Further, often these research efforts are...

You can’t get Amazon-like results without process management

Bloomberg Businessweek has a very interesting article up on Brad Stone's new biography of Jeff Bezos. From the opening page of the article...

Are you giving away enough?

At the grocery store today, I noticed an end cap with nylon first-aid kit bags. The paperback-sized pouches were red, with a cross...

Do you suffer from orgasnizational ADD?

I ran across two very interesting young guys the other week, both of whom drilled home a perennial business lesson: focus! In a parallel life...

Innovation in

Innovation is, of course, a necessary competence for any successful organization. We usually think of it as being centered around new technologies, but...

Troubling expenses or cheap quality control?

I bought a couple items of clothing recently from a major catalog house, and I wasn't too pleased with the items. The...

Measure the leading, but not obvious, indicators

I was talking to a manager of a new Tractor Supply store recently. Out of curiosity I asked her, "How many farms are...

How process management can elevate the value of Marketing

Business Process Management (BPM) is well accepted practice on the supply chain side of most businesses. However, supply chain improvement is only likely to...

Services as a devious customer retention tactic

OK, not really devious. A business I'm familiar with had to change its primary checking account from one bank to another this week....

Customer service as a revenue center

Traditionally you can view customer service as either a cost center or a profit center. If you treat it as a cost center,...

You only have to worry about a few employees (maybe)

You were probably taught, as we were, that all naturally occurring phenomena are distributed along a "normal" or Bell curve. Take talent, for...

“Customer centric” is still mostly baloney

For all the talk of "putting the customer first" these days, many, if not most, companies really don't. (Actually, the right priorities for any company...

Okay, this right-brained stuff can be profitable (says the engineer)

I'm an engineer by training, and so is Mitch.  We tend to have left-brained approaches — at least initially — to problems.  While we...

Are you in a viciously competitive business? Boy, am I glad!

This is my first inspirational post – fair warning! I have recently spent way too much time noodling around the world of economy pens...

Why does everyone forget how to do surveys?

The third-party survey company, doing a quality survey for my health care provider (doctor's office), just caught me at a weak moment and I...

Present sales in the future tense

Been working on a couple client projects lately that required analyzing and straightening out sales data, and it brought to mind something that is...

So you think you care about quality? Here’s an acid test.

My wife uses those fancy, high-end Moleskine planners, and they are very nice products. I was reading the little promotional booklet that came...

Does business suck now? Is it your fault?

I recently wrote about how actions have consequences, and that your present business prospects have much to do with your past actions or lack...

What Not to Wear, or How Not to Process

My wife and I were driving the other day when, out of the blue, she looks over at me and says, "I hate that...

Are you reaping the dismal results that you sowed a couple years earlier?

The story: Labor Day night I placed an online order with L.L. Bean (which went flawlessly). The next morning I woke up and...

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