Leadership

Creating a Culture of Accountability

One of the biggest challenges that leaders face in creating a culture of high performance is their ability to create an environment where their teams are accountable for their results that they have committed to achieve. Creating a culture of accountability is exactly that — creating a culture. It is not easy and it starts with them. They are the custodians of the culture within their organisations. The culture is created one action at a time of the leader. So, if you want your teams to be accountable, you as a leader need to be accountable. So, what does being accountable […]

Marketing

Great Marketing is when…

I recently read a post by Bernadette Jiwa titled Good Marketing. It was an interesting short post which talks about how good marketing is all about the customer and not about the marketer. That raised a question for me – What is Great marketing ? In my opinion, great marketing is when marketing blurs the marketer completely. Great marketing is when the customer talks about your products or service to their tribes. Great marketing is when the customer shares his/her experience with others. Great marketing is when the entire experience for the customer, from the time she discovers her need, […]

Marketing

Customer Awareness and Customer Care

A recent post by Bernadette Jiwa made me think about the difference between Customer Support, Customer Satisfaction and customer awareness/care. The post articulates the importance and difference between both categories, which I completely agree and wanted to bring in my perspectives on the same. Both customer satisfaction and customer support are targeted towards customers who are vocal about what they think and feel about the product or the company. A small subset of this are customer who are vocal because they care and want the business or the product to get better. All others in this set of customers are people […]

Entrepreneurship, Strategy

Why Startups Fail?

There are only three things that can kill a startup: Running out of cash: This is the biggest reason why most startups and even some of the large organisations fail. They run out of cash. Startup founders would give themselves a much better chance of success if they are able to figure out a consistent cash flow. Profitability can come later in the life of a startup, cash flow must come first. This is akin to oxygen for humans. No oxygen, no life. No cash, no startup. Cash can come from investors, customers or founders. The most sustainable of the […]

Innovation, Leadership

A Taste of Leadership – The transition from Either/Or to Both/And

I had the opportunity to watch a TEDx Talk delivered by Alf Rehn recently and blown away by not only the way he delivers the talk but also the way he presents a very important concept – we are today in an economy where we, as leaders need to move away from the either/or (ex: either your are process driven or you are creative) mindset towards “Both/And (you are both process driven and creative, based on the need of the hour) mindset if we are to tap into the creativity of our teams and succeed in an ever changing, fast […]