https://berkonomics.com/?p=3532&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=catch-up-to-your-market-or-be-lost Dave Berkus' business insights Wed, 22 Aug 2018 00:12:57 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://berkonomics.com/?p=3532&cpage=1#comment-120035 Wed, 22 Aug 2018 00:12:57 +0000 https://berkonomics.com/?p=3532#comment-120035 Thanks for reminding us of “the basics” that get too easy to ignore, with your great words of wisdom, Dave.

]]> https://berkonomics.com/?p=3532&cpage=1#comment-120030 Tue, 21 Aug 2018 17:52:01 +0000 https://berkonomics.com/?p=3532#comment-120030 CEOs and COOs who are too heads-down just tending to the day-to-day would be well advised to bring on a Knowledge Manager or a dedicated Industry Analyst, someone whose primary responsibility is to identify and evaluate trends not only in their specific industry, but other industries that may someday affect theirs. (Ideally your CMO should be doing this, but they too are too often heads-down or merely oblivious to what’s happening around them.) What you’re looking for is not merely a competitive scan, but a scan of companies that could someday become competitors as well as category creators / disrupters. And do not rely on reports from the analyst companies to give you the information you need ! Analysts are prone to groupthink; they’re often behind the curve instead of ahead of it; and they often provide incredibly bad advice. I worked at a company that had a perfectly good business but bet the farm on a direction the analysts insisted they needed to follow. Why that worked out as poorly as it did is a whole separate story.

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