If we conduct a survey on who is the most innovating person nowadays, many people would mention Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. Jobs appears in his own right as a clear benchmarker of innovation. Personally, I appreciate Jobs’ work and vision and it is part of my list of benchmarkers but I do not particularly consider...
The created needs
Someone told me once that if a Martian came to the Earth and watched TV advertisements, it would never like to be a woman. When he noticed my interrogation look, he replied: Tell me, who appears on adverts with stomach swelling compared with a ‘globe-fish’?
There have always been cases of products that exceed the dimension they were created for and are transported to a category of icons beyond their function, simply as a result of being objects. They are products which have become part of our lives’ imaginary and they constitute an active component of our culture.
There are products and business models that are especially successful; from the moment they burst into the market they are accepted by consumers, they produce addiction and they ‘set an example’ by leading their sectors and becoming their reference point. Apple and most of the products it launches reflect this model; each new reference turns out to be more and more astonishing.
I will not deny that I am especially fond of companies framed within the concept of retail. As with many other novel concepts, there are numerous interpretations of it; the Oxford Dictionary of Business reads: a retailer is a ‘distributor which sells goods and services to consumers. There are three categories of retailers: multiple shops,...
When we participated in the redefinition of the strategy of the well-known toy retailer Imaginarium, the first thing we did was define an opportunity ‘umbrella’ that would broaden the company’s field of action. With this purpose and after carrying out several processes of analysis of the existing knowledge of its structures (Knowledge Stock), contrasting them...
Why in times of recession does the luxury business grow?
In times of recession and market contraction, we are still surprised at the growing business figures published by companies under the ‘luxury’ heading. This sector has become a defensive stronghold for recession. On the basis of this, its industry endeavours to detect new niches of products and services that could expand and reinforce the category: millionaire fairs, exclusive best-buy clubs, TV programmes, among others, are arising in our lives for the enjoyment of some and the shame of others.
BBVA: Nonfinancial product’s sale in the banking branches.
If we have to define the four retail keys, those concepts that all the models independently look for the sector in which they operate, they would probably be: increase the traffic, elevate the average ticket, customer’s loyalty and establishing a multi-channel experience with him.
Marcilla Capsules for Italian coffee pot. Sometimes, the great innovations that appear in the market, managed to set new consumption fashions that do not respond to the previously established habits nor to the consumers’ tradition but, despite their conceptual force, they managed to commercially succeed.
In 2006 I wrote along with Alfons Cornella the book ‘La Alquimia de la Innovación’ (‘The alchemy of innovation’); in which we described 10 words or contexts that we both considered to be fundamental for the development of innovation and strategy in companies; words like hybridation, authentic/honest, teamdividualism, territory/frontier, ephemeral/effervescent, capillarity, catalysis, failure, radical and...
