Nicholas Watkis
Nicholas Watkis, AE MA DipM CMC FCIM
Nicholas Watkis set up Contract Marketing Service in 1981, providing professional interim marketing management for a wide variety of businesses. Over 30 years practical experience in organizations, large and small, national and international, led to the development of Business Performance Maximized specialist in marketing performance measurement.
Time for a Change?
Time for a Change? "Change" is the only constant. Whether considering the states of the universe, weather patterns, or ecological systems, all are in a...
CRM: Do customers really want to forge ‘relationships’ with companies?
There are many "principles" and "rules", which are said to be fundamental to the process of business. One of these is...
Credibility – the essential factor of successful business
The past few years have been particularly difficult for those responsible for developing and maintaining levels of corporate income. In most markets, demand is...
Cutting costs may not improve profitability
When faced with a demand by the chief executive officer (CEO) to cut costs, what should the head of corporate income do? Whenever...
Selling or Buying – which is it?
The action of selling is the only business activity that brings money into a business. Thus the effective management of the selling process is...
If sales aren’t where they should be, start asking why.
All businesses at sometime or other are subject to variations in their volume of sales and level of income. Depending on the type of...
“Marketing” is about management”
In December 2011, the Chartered Institute of Marketing put the cat amongst the pigeons of the marketing press when it published a discussion document...
Customer strategy: Contact with the enemy makes all plans obsolete!
Defining business mission statements, strategies and objectives, is a relatively easy if at times laborious process undertaken by those in charge of getting and...
Ignorance is no excuse
In the "phone hacking scandal", News International managers appear to have assumed that the gaoling of Goodman and Mulcaire, had ended any illegal practices...
It is easier to lose business than to get it
Businesses are not philanthropic institutions: they exist to make money in the form of profit. To make money businesses have to anticipate and satisfy...
How well do you understand your business?
What do you know about your business? More importantly, what do you know about getting and retaining the business that produces the income for...
Managers have to manage; they don’t need to be creative.
Every commercial business started as an idea for the purpose of making money. Successful entrepreneurs are good at identifying problems of society and individuals;...
To Lead or Manage, – that is the question.?
Government organizations local and national spend a lot of money on leadership training, aping so it seems what is done in business. But it...
“If you are not in business for profit or fun why are you here?”
"Up the Organization" written in 1970 by Robert Townshend the then chairman of Avis Rental cars, was a worldwide best seller. Townshend analysed and...
Marketing isn’t war, its management
There have been a number of books in recent years suggesting that successful business is like warfare, e.g. Mark McNeilly's "Sun Tzu and the...
Cash flow is king
When considering any business, the two principle documents which are consulted are the Balance Sheet and the Profit and Loss account. These two documents...
Mumbo Jumbo damages marketing credibility
Recent papers published during this year by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and its respective publishing partners, Deloittes and Accenture, make interesting reading. The...
Can marketers game the system?
Both the marketing press and academia appear to concentrate on the marketing structures and organizations of larger companies, rather than that of small and...
If you don’t do this, you won’t succeed
If you don’t do this, you won’t succeed Most marketers would consider their role in a business to be one of creativity, especially regarding advertising,...
Can you spend nothing on Marketing?
The leader article in September's edition of "The Marketer", titled "Who needs money?" suggested the idea of "marketing "without money. The article cited several...