nickshanagher

There are five things that most people get wrong about what makes great companies succeed. Great companies are not led by risk takers. They do not innovate more than their competitors. They are not quicker to react to change. They don’t change the way they work. And they don’t have more good luck. In Great byChoice , written by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, the real attributes of success are analysed and presented in a way that will help any business leader think about what she is doing well and where she needs to improve. But first a spoiler alert. If you are a fan of Robert Falcon Scott, this book is not for you. Collins and Hansen use a discussion of the ways that Roald Amundsen and Scott approached their 1911 race to be first to the South Pole to demonstrate how the findings above make the difference between life and death. While the book runs to 304 pages, mostly to back up the authors’ arguments, you can get a great deal out of reading the stories. In just six page...

Sometimes local shops are ahead of the game when it comes to shopper trends. And sometimes they are not. As a general rule, people don’t expect to be marketed to by independent shopkeepers. But there are many exceptions. This column is for the exceptions: Those retailers who are always searching for great products to share with their shoppers. But it is also a challenge for those who don’t push the boundaries of their assortment of products. Mike Brehme is an entrepreneur that I had never heard of until last month. He spent 23 years building up the tea brand Clipper to sales of £50 million before he sold it in 2007. Along the way he pioneered the UK market for green tea, Fairtrade tea, and organic hot drinks including herbal and fruit infusions. For most of the time since he sold Clipper he has been working on a new product, a hot drink that is not tea or coffee and that will sell better than fruit teas. This spring, in London, he unveiled FruitBroo, a range of “insanel...

"How we interact at a local level is really important to us, and that's why we've launched these local Facebook pages," Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer of Wal-Mart US, tells Fortune magazine. The full article http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/14/news/companies/walmart_stephen_quinn_leadership.fortune/index.htm  is well worth a read. Mr Quinn explains that retailing is fundamentally a local business. His marketing team has to work out how to build local communities around its 3,500 US stores. For local shopkeepers the challenge is clear. In 2012 you need to think about how you represent your shop on Facebook and similar social media and through the internet. As an exercise, go to Google and enter the word groceries and the name of your town or village. I did it for my village and One Stop came top. I did it for where I work and Sainsbury Local came top. "Our goal is to integrate into the things that are happening in a local commun...

Earlier this month, the FT profiled Moni Varma, founder of Veetee Rice, for its entrepreneur column. As an immigrant from Malawi, Mr Varma's journey to success in the UK will have obvious resonance for many south Asian shop owners. Mr Varma has built a public profile on the back of a successful track record as a supplier to the multiple supermarkets and more recently through developing his own brand Dine In range. Late last year he joined the chairman of Asda in signing a letter to the Daily Telegraph supporting the government's "cuts" to public spending ("cuts" is in inverted commas because total spending is still going up, just more slowly than previously planned). Interviewed by Jon Snow of Channel Four, he said his optimism in creating new jobs and investing in the Dine In range was fuelled by the downturn because people were going to be eating in more frequently. Mr Snow challenged Mr Varma's view that the private sector could kick start the e...

Like arch-rival Unilever the previous week, Procter & Gamble told investors that consumers had accepted the range of price increases that it had introduced because of the rising costs of raw materials. In summary, its results for the fourth quarter included 8 per cent sales growth of which 3 per cent was from price rises. In a conference call to chief executive Bob McDonald, one analyst asked about how the company might respond to a low single digit growth environment in developed countries [like the UK]. He said they had two strategies. One was to keep on investing in research and development and to develop new categories. The other, if no growth was possible, was to keep its costs under control so that it hit its profit targets. What is clear is only two areas are not under threat of spending cuts - research and development, and advertising. One of Mr McDonald's concerns is if competitors do not raise prices. They were watching markets closely to see if they had to resp...

John Speakman produced some research in 2008 that showed that people in the UK are exercising as much today as they did 25 years ago and suggesting the only way to fight obesity is to eat less. After a couple of lectures this year, the Aberdeen University professor's work has been back in the news. He found that in the UK the average calorie content of food we buy had increased by 12 per cent over the same period. In the US the rise was 25 per cent. "People would have to exercise for four to five hours a day," he says in order to lose the weight that these extra calories cause. What the food companies put in, they can also take out. Expect major manufacturers to innovate their way back to the calorie content of foods 25 years ago.

I first came across people who called crisps, crips in Dublin when I was working in a pub some 30 years ago. Seeing it as a brand name at a show last week prompted me to ask one question, why didn't someone think of this before. However, Crips are not crisps but cleverly baked snacks launched three years ago by Karl Traae and his buddy using a patented recipe. They are building distribution by attending trade shows and persuading small multiples, the big grocers and independent food stores to stock the brand. Newsagents and convenience stores are, however, less likely to try the product than shops that specialise in food, says Mr Traae. Why is this? Perhaps because they are not used to explaining the make up of products that they sell. "It someone walks into your shop and they have never seen Crips before and see that they are 70p and ask you what this product is about, are you going to be able to explain how it is made and why it is better for you?" he asks. Which is a g...

The news that Cadbury is to open café style shops in the UK is further evidence of the strength of the food-to-go market. Reports suggest that the plans were already advanced before Kenco owner Kraft Foods acquired the chocolate-making company. City analysts responded with scepticism, saying if it wanted to be in this market, it would be cheaper to buy an existing chain like Caffe Nero. While 60 coffee shops are unlikely to make a major change in the way that Cadbury supports local shops, on the surface it is likely to be a distraction. Valuable management time will be diverted away from worrying about the pricing of countlines and promoting treats in a way that does not upset the health lobbyists. For local retailers who are already selling hot drinks, the move by Cadbury could help to increase the innovation in the market, with new products to try out and new formats. Cadbury is likely to be closely studying shoppers in an effort to ensure that its cafés are innovative and not a nove...