Yearly Archives: author

As a practitioner and academic, I spend a lot of time with clients and students talking about the fundamental need to listen to your customers and act upon what they’re telling you. It is basic common sense and basic best practice – how many times has a customer said about a producer that they just

I was recently asked by Bradford University School of Management to deliver a lecture to businesses. They said “can you do half an hour on strategy?” I’m used to delivering two or three day strategy workshops and MBA programmes. But 30 minutes?! What can you say about strategy in 30 minutes? On reflection, quite a

This month has been a bumper one for news stories, articles and exposés about the use of data, big data and artificial intelligence.  The coverage has got me thinking. Is it all a liberating licence to become more commercially astute and successful through a greater understanding of the customer or a slightly dangerous cul-de-sac which

The recent business news has been full of the problems besetting the UK’s largest retailer Tesco. Part of the blame for its poor performance has been laid at the failure of its “Fresh & Easy” chain in the United States, which lost the supermarket £3bn. This was to have been Tesco’s grand entrance into a

Why are marketers wasting time with email and other so called personalised marketing? We pretend to be personal and personalised but actually treat our targets as numbers to be played around with. A few weeks ago I was approached with a personal and chatty email by the marketing manager of a blue chip company. The

I have just returned from a week’s holiday (vacation) in New York. No, I’m not going to share with you my holiday snaps, but rather some very interesting insights into customer service. Travelling to and staying in New York was a revelation in terms of customer service and how it can really work. Now when

In the last year I have run a dozen or more workshops for corporates to help develop their marketing strategies. Whatever the size or sector, three themes always come through: How do I understand my customers? How do I understand my competitors? What does strategic marketing mean at the most senior levels of my company?

Organisations tend to be so silo driven that they frequently miss the point of their existence - to provide great products/services and to retain their customers for the long term. Financial services are an example of how loyal customers can be charged for tiny instances of going into debit and these charges can on the one hand reduce loyalty yet on the other help meet a budget target of the "charges" department. The costs of losing customers are great, yet frequently missed as all that seems to matter is new business. Companies need to take a fresh approach - ...

NHS under fire - recommendations for the NHS to implement some fairly basic management practices.

The news from Npower just keeps getting worse. Last week the company announced a series of job cuts and operational rationalisation. At the weekend the press reported that service levels were poor, even by utility industry standards. Then this week there was further bad news on the service front – serious issues with billing accuracy.

The Francis Report into the conduct of the Mid Staffordshire Foundation NHS Trust towards its patients was a shocking indictment of customer service at its worst, albeit in the form of patient care. Robert Francis QC said people had entered Stafford Hospital with the expectation of being well cared for and treated. Yet, many suffered

This blog appeared first on the Bradford University School of Management blog. Earlier this month the FT debated the short-term focus of MBA teaching in top management schools and the move towards less emphasis on shareholder value as the only thing that matters. It struck me that too often MBA students have a very short-term