Cape Town and then the Prospector strategy.

Good Morning,

Cape Town at her beautiful best this morning, blue skies and little wind, there has to be a motorcycle ride out there, sometime today.

Simonstown from Redhill

Prospectors: Changing product market (staying abreast of their customer's changing needs, wants and demands), innovation and change, a flexible organisational structure (multi-skilled and multi-tasked), headed by younger managers, this has a wonderful entrepreneurial feel to it. The goal is a product that is perceived as unique in the marketplace (remember the myth of equal products), with distinct advantages and positioned away from competing offers.

Prospector firms are creative, innovative and decentralised, they aim to shake up the market, gain market share and market leadership. Defenders (discussed in the last post) and prospectors are on opposite ends of the strategy scale, defenders attempt to maintain the status quo while prospectors attempt to define a new future. An example of a great prospector firm is the 3M corporation.

So what can we take from the above, if you are a CEO heading a corporation, or a GM heading a SBU, a Regional Manager, a Sales Manager or even a Sales Representative managing an area, how many new clients did you get today, this week, this month or even this year? Stop defending, get creative and innovative, get new users, find new usages and grow your business. In the next post I will discuss the analyser strategy. (My thanks to Arnoud, Price and Zinkham, the authors of Consumers).

To motorcycling, what is exciting me right now?

The new KTM

What does not excite me right now, the price of fuel, January 2009 R5-76 per litre, May 2013 R12-10 per litre. A falling rand and a rising oil price. It would be interesting to see what the Rand/$ exchange rate and the oil price per barrel were in January 2009.

The price of fuel January 2009.

Ciao, have a wonderful day, ride safe.

-oOo-