nickshanagher

In Good to Great by Jim Collins he devotes a chapter to the Hedgehog Concept, the one big thing that a company must focus on to become a great company. Every business can learn from this. The retail example that he uses at the start of the chapter is a company called Walgreens, which is what Americans call a drug store and in the UK we call a chemist. Its strategy was to be the best company at operating convenient drugstores and its economic denominator was to measure the profit per customer visit rather than profit per store. The economic driver is interesting as it systematically closed all its shops that were in inconvenient locations and opened new shops in convenient locations. "If a great corner location would open up just half a block away from a profitable Walgreens store in a good location, the company would close the good store (even at a cost of $1 million to get out of the lease) to open a great new store on the corner," wrote Mr Collins. It pioneered dr...

Today is the official launch date of the Fusion ProGlide shaving system in the UK and after a brief exposure to the power of the Gillette marketing machine last week I would recommend that local shopkeepers stock it for their shoppers today - enough so that shoppers see it in your store. Behind this recommendation lies two thoughts. The first is that the product is good. People who choose to upgrade from their previous razor are not likely to be disappointed. I am already trying to work out whether to write off my three new cartridges for my old razor - and they were not cheap. Already, after a week, I remember to press the button so the razor vibrates slightly so I "barely feel the blades". The second is the track record of Gillette, now owned by Procter & Gamble, which is celebrated in Jim Collins' Good to Great. In his book, Mr Collins identifies that great companies are all powered by simple ideas. In the case of Gillette it was that it could be the best in th...