Sales and marketing

Accounting for almost 30% of world GDP, the United States is the world’s largest and most demanding market for almost everything from oil to microprocessors to premium coffee. Companies around the world aspire to do business in the US, or at least with US companies in their home markets. By doing so, they learn much […]

Big-box stores need to offer discounts — and make customers earn them.

No one likes "take it or leave it" ultimatums.

Is your company unintentionally keeping your most senior people from getting the feedback they most need? It can easily happen as an unintended consequence of success. Consider these situations: Senior executives at car companies drive only the newest models: For decades, the top executives at America’s leading automobile manufacturers always drove models fresh from the […]

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

It’s become the mantra of the moment: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Leaders everywhere are struggling to make sense of the worldwide economic crisis, to learn lessons that will guide them and their companies going forward. My worry is that too many leaders are learning the wrong lessons — they are becoming […]

Surprised by a gender stereotype? React calmly, directly, and move on.

The electric car company should use this information to defend its brand.

Context is key.

Now that providing services is more lucrative than making products, the old foundations for success in manufacturing are crumbling. Smart manufacturers are creating new business models to capture profits at the customer’s end of the value chain.

Using the results of a survey of 380 companies in 34 industries, this author examines three basic types of compensation plans: salary, commission, and combination (salary plus commission). Most companies in the study favored a combination plan, but such plans have some disadvantages to offset their obvious attractiveness. The author sets out the possible reasons […]

I'm in Toronto this week on business. Arriving a few days early to play tourist, I tweeted for recommendations for places to eat and things to do. In...

When productivity is a problem in manufacturing, managers turn to the R&D department or operations for help. In services, however, especially ones where there is a lot of contact with the customer, such in-house groups cannot by themselves improve productivity. Because services involve the customer in production, are labor intensive, and are time-bound, consumer behavior […]

What if the thing that gets online shoppers to buy a product is also the thing that makes them dissatisfied with the product when it arrives? In a recent research project, I tested this hypothesis using the pictures of products that accompany the online shopping experience. Images are the crux of online shopping. Good pictures […]

How Experian does it.

New research confirms that the bigger the employees' smiles, the happier the customers.

Many companies could persuade big spenders to buy even more.

The tech giant chose the wrong moment to sell at a 25% premium over the competition.

Its move into car insurance could be just the beginning.

Brand builders everywhere think they want global brands. But global brand leadership, not global brands, should be the priority. Successful companies follow four principles to meet that goal.