Nicholas Watkis
Is Parkinson’s Law adding to costs?
It was in 1955 that C. Northcote Parkinson published a humorous satirical article in the Economist, which described the natural tendency in the administration and bureaucracy of organisations, for officials to make more work for each other. This commonplace observation that work expands so...
Rating your customer’s experience.
Whether it is a consumer or business to business organisation, the customer should be at the centre, as the customer provides the income. But is this always the case? There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that for many business organisations, especially large...
Frequent change prevents achievement
Back in 2010, surveys by the CMO Council in the United States and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in Britain suggested that on average, marketing staff remained in their position for only 18 to 24 months or less. In subsequent years little seems...
Are you confused?
The latest edition of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s magazine “Catalyst” has a number of articles related to creativity especially involving brand, image and advertising and the overall “marketing” spend. However, the purpose of every business is to make money, for the benefit of...
Cosing the sale may now take longer than you think
Selling is the only action that actually achieves the income, and unless the salesperson completes the sale, all other activities such as brand development or social media promotion are wasted effort. The prime purpose of every business is to make money for the benefit of...
How prepared are you for the return of demand?
The economies of many countries around the world have been effectively stalled by the world wide covid 19 pandemic. Demand has slowed or been actively curtailed by governments in their fight to stem the growth of the pandemic. However, Covid and governments have...
Invest and Adapt
The British retail market has been badly hit over the recent years, with a number of failures of famous high street brand names. Famous names such as Woolworths, British Home Stores, and historic menswear chain Greenwoods have all disappeared after liquidation. Now Debenhams is...
Effective Managers Deligate
To produce sustainable profitable income, by anticipating and satisfying customer demand, requires a process of careful management, which is generally referred to as “marketing”. However, while the term “marketing” may often be defined differently, it is as a management process that it should properly...
Changing Environments require changed thinking
There is now a general recognition nationally and internationally, that a recession will follow in the wake of the corona virus pandemic, which will manifest itself in both a slowdown in demand and commercial activity in general. Business development is all about change and successful...
When the going gets tough the tough get going
A pandemic such as that of Covid 19, is a world-wide phenomenon, which although rare, is not unique. As a result all the major economies are experiencing a recession to a greater or lesser extent, and are unlikely to return to appreciable growth for...
Arbitary cost cutting is dangerous
The covid-19 pandemic is having a serious effect on commercial activity across the world, producing a state of economic recession. Many businesses are seeing their income fall, while their costs remain. Demand is still there, but government enforced shut-downs and social distancing has resulted...
The Post Virus Recession
The economic effect of the covid19 virus pandemic will be world-wide. The situation is unprecedented in every country where the economy has been locked down, so that commercial and cultural activity has ceased by order of their respective governments. Economic life depends on the circulation...
Do your customers really matter?
Do your customers really matter or are they merely an inconvenient cash cow and means to an end? The prime responsibility of a commercial manager is the production and maximisation of profitable income for the long term future of a business. Profitable income is produced...
What goes around comes around
The Chartered Institute of Marketing has recently published the first part of a new survey, titled “The impact of marketing part 1 - the mission for marketing”. The basis of the report is that marketers feel under-appreciated for their contribution and find it difficult...
You may not be trading, but you are still in business
Commerce and business in general has been effectively shut down throughout the world as the result of the Coronavirus pandemic. Many businesses in retail, business to business, and hospitality have been forced to close for an indefinite period, because of the virus. Some of...
Stuff Happens
Donald Rumfolt said there are things we know we know. ... But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. When dealing with the things we know, we can plan accordingly, but however good business or marketing plans may be,...
Top Down or Bottom Up?
How does your business and marketing department operate, - a top down command structure or a bottom up approach? A top down approach can ensure the direction of objectives policy and procedure, but it can also incur stagnation, slow reaction, and stifle innovation. Successfully getting...
Is your business successful? – It depends what you measure
Is your business successful? It depends how you define success. Is it the size of your market share, or the share price? Is it the number of hits on the web-page, or the number of likes on social media? Is it the amount of...
Customer service and Marketing should not be in separate silos
A recent short but interesting article in My Customer (14Oct19) entitled Why service and marketing should have a shared budget highlighted again how commercial activities in many businesses still operate in a silo mentality. The article went on to suggest “that marketing spend...
Who has the need and is it a problem?
The”Dragon’s Den” is a very successful television series. Every week, would be entrepreneurs bring their products seeking to entice the star “Dragons” to invest their money into a new venture, in return for a small amount of equity in the new business. In many cases,...