Test your Strategy!

You have done the brainstorming. Performed all the necessary analysis. Finally a proper strategy has been conceptualised for your organization. Well, mostly.

How does one know that the strategy that has been developed (over time, or through defined frameworks) is actually going to work? The McKinsey Quarterly has come up with ten tests to examine this dilemma. Rather than going deeper into new frameworks, the authors opine that it would be better to re-visit the classic questions in order to test effectiveness of strategies. As a result, the ten tests, although fairly simple and basic, are comprehensive. 

Read the entire article here before you start implementing that strategy!

The Future of Information Technology

Accenture's latest report on the IT sector challenges traditional and conventional structure of enterprise computing. Out of 400 hypotheses developed by their research team, 50 were finally found to be defensible and these were developed into 8 significant trends. The essence of the vision lies in the changing role of IT - from being a support function, it will now be taking center-stage by actually driving business performance.

"Accenture Technology Vision 2011" will be an interesting read for anyone interested in IT and its future direction. Download the entire report or an executive summary here.

Burning Platform

Nokia's new CEO Stephen Elop came out with a scorcher of a memo for his employees last week. While indulging in a very frank analysis of Nokia's competition, Elop uses the analogy of a "burning platform". He opines that currently, Nokia does indeed find itself on such a burning platform, and it is imperative for the firm to take a plunge into dark, unknown, freezing waters. Meanwhile, Justin Fox of HBR blogs, who studied Nokia in-depth a few years ago, recollects a few things about Nokia's history, and how it came to be the giant it is today.

The CEO's memo provides as interesting a read as this piece on one of the key factors that got Nokia to where it is today.

Pay What You Want!

The concept of "pay what you want" has gathered attention in recent times. A group of three professors from the University of California decided to see how much this pricing concept really worked, and set up their research at a roller-coaster ride in an amusement park. Another twist they added was to examine how much the revenues varied if part of the price was communicated as being donated to charity.

The results are interesting - the revenue earned was higher when customers were given the option of deciding their price (even after accounting for those who opted not to pay anything), and far higher (triple!) once the charity option was added. Read details about the entire experiment here.

How NOT to compete

As businesses try and do something "different" in order to capture the consumer's attention, it seems like they are all in fact doing the same thing - minor tweaking to breakthrough innovations and then terming those to be "brand new" products.

These kind of innovation-less improvements do nothing other than adding to a growing pile of mediocre products. This post at HBR Blogs talks about how such kind of strategy contributes nothing to the world. One startling statistic quoted: A recent Consumer Electronics Show (an annual affair) saw the unveiling of 20,000 products... Woah! 20,000 products within the consumer electronics segment alone. How many of these are we actually interested in?