IDC WebDev Business and Technology News
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10/05/05 issue
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1) Welcome to IDC WebDev's Monthly Newsletter
Welcome to another IDC WebDev newsletter, our brief way of saying "hello" to clients and partners past and present. Don't be afraid to tell us what you think or submit your own ideas for topics or issues (contact@idcwebdev.com).
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2) The Making of a Practical MBA
By: Mike Cassano, MBA Class of 2007
Semester 1, Issue 1
Hello and welcome! I have been commissioned by the ever-diligent Jesse Mortenson to chronicle my adventures in business school. As many of you know, I have been attending the Carlson School of Management Full time MBA program since early August 2005. I have set out on this adventure with wide eyes, excitement, a blue tie and shined shoes. Once a month I will reflect on my experiences and on business insights I have gained through my education. Why would a young man in a growing business step away to mingle with a bunch of theoretical academics? Well, read on!
This month I will focus on the one and the only, the bread and the butter, the customer. The customer is what keeps our businesses alive, but yet it seems that companies frequently lose their focus on the customer. Companies do this in many ways, by either taking current customers for granted or by not considering the customer in new marketing efforts. It is vitally important that you take care to nurture the relationships you have built with your current customers. It is always cheaper selling to customers that you already have a relationship with, so why not give a little back every now and then? Offering discounts on future contracts and keeping your customers up to date on your business are easy ways to keep your company in their minds.
One of the best ways to breathe life into that tired marketing campaign is by focusing on your company brand. Are you marketing to your customer without a consistent brand image of your company? If you are then you might reconsider! The benefits of having a strong brand are clear: loyalty and profits. Summarized from “The Brand Report Card”, a Harvard Business School Publishing article by Kevin Lane Keller, here are a couple attributes that you can use to evaluate your brand on, attributes that all of the top brand images share.
Does your pricing strategy meet your customers’ perceptions of your products? Many companies price too high, or too low, and miss out on business because they are not in line with their customers’ perceptions of value. Are you cutting costs, and sacrificing quality, in order to deliver a lower-priced product for your customer? Tread carefully, as you may find that your customers are more than willing to pay a premium for your product as long as the quality remains put. Do you really want to raise your rates by 10%? Unless your customer already sees premium value in your brand then they are not likely to appreciate your prices rising in line with the national debt.
Does your brand excel at delivering the benefits that customers really crave? You must truly understand your customers if you are to be sure that you are delivering what they want. Case in point, in Starbucks’ early history they were a small coffee retailer not quite on track to be the largest coffee shop business in the world. The pivotal point in their business was when Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ current chairman, visited Italy and saw the culture behind coffee. It hit him like a sack full of medium roast: Starbucks was selling beans, when they should have been selling the coffee experience. It was this realization that focused Starbucks less on selling coffee beans, and more on selling the daily coffee experience that so many Americans have shown to love. The lesson here is to synchronize your brand with what your customers expect of your offerings.
3) Six Interesting News Items
MPR article
Given the high price of DSL/cable broadband Internet access, and the increasing importance of broadband speed in accessing mainstream digital content, cities across the nation have begun projects to provide wireless broadband to all citizens. However, a number of state legislatures have passed laws forbidding this, apparently at the behest of of the DSL/cable companies (who fear competition). Other questions emerge as well, such as: should a wireless net be owned by the public, a private company, or something else? Watch out - both of our twin cities are looking into this, so it's time to study up on broadband policy. My opinion: a wireless net should be provided neither by a large telecommunications company nor the city, but rather a new community-based corporation held exclusively by shareholders living in the city.
Robert X. Cringely here reflects on proposed patent reform legislation that would make it easier for people with lots of lawyers to file more patents and more difficult to stop a patent infringer from continuing to infringe. Cringely cites the recent trend among large technology companies of registering frivolous patents, like this one.
Should information published on the Internet be subject to the same campaign finance laws applied to other media? There is an important balance to be struck between supporting the proliferation of interesting perspectives on blogs and other do-it-yourself web venues, and also recognizing that big political money is beginning to flow into web advertising.
The opening paragraph from this article says it all: "Next time you sit down to pay your cable-modem or DSL bill, consider this: Most Japanese consumers can get an Internet connection that's 16 times faster than the typical American DSL line for a mere $22 per month."
A writer with Ars Technica examines the FBI's implementation of a new anti-obscenity law: the creation of an 8-person unit to gather evidence on "deviant porn" that goes beyond child pornography to material created by consenting adults. The classic questions of government funding priorities and government intrusion into privacy are answered here with a libertarian perspective.
So you've already started using Mozilla Firefox to do your surfing, and you're hungry for yet another high quality alternative browser? The Opera web browser, formerly available with advertising or for a price, is now free to the public. Opera is not Open Source, but it does have a dedicated group of supporters for its quickness, security, and slightly unusual user interface. I'm still using Firefox, but it's nice to have options (as long as its standards-compliant).
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