Emerging Business Models Archives
Here you’ll find a collection of blog entries published under the Emerging Business Models category.
Canon Gets It
By Bruce LaFetra on November 16, 2009
I was looking at digital cameras on the web the other day, and Canon stopped me in my tracks. They have user reviews just like many resellers, but very few manufacturers. Reviews are prominently featured just below the fold on the initial page for each camera model. More than that, they collect the most common comments at the top and list them under “Pro” and “Con” sections. You read that correctly—Canon prominently lists top consumer complaints on their web site. Things like “poor low light performance,” “complicated to use controls/menu,” and “difficult to use.” Were the marketing people completely cut out of the loop?
Hope or Hype: Data in the Cloud
By Bruce LaFetra on September 2, 2009
Nilofer, just back from FOO Camp this past weekend, reports the underlying current in discussions involved data in the cloud and how valuable it will be. I’m on the record as a believer in cloud data, but maybe see it happening in a different way.
Filling Your Company with LOVE: A new framework for understanding consumer relationships
By Bruce LaFetra on July 28, 2009
As companies see increasing value in social media campaigns, it is becoming apparent that the transactional-centric models currently used for tracking and measuring marketing campaigns are not up to the social media challenge. With social media campaigns often focused on brand building and driving engagement, the tools used to measure the impact on sales and brand are ill-suited to accurately measuring the full impact and value of social media campaigns.
The buying or sales funnel that has served marketers well for many years no longer works in an environment now centered on two-way and unstructured communications. A new framework developed at Rubicon Consulting, Inc., building on ideas originally conceived by Harry Max, offers the relationship-centric LOVE model as a replacement—and enhancement—for the transaction-based buying funnel.
Is Your Business Model Built for the Long Haul?
By Bruce LaFetra on September 22, 2008
Public statements notwithstanding, more business plans in Silicon Valley are built around technology than around customer relationships. It’s just the way it is; we’re talking about technology companies, right? The problem is that, given time, all technology either becomes obsolete or a commodity. With the increasing pace of technological change, this is happening sooner rather than later. The risk in building on technology rather than customer relationships is that you are never more than a wrong turn or two away from putting your business survival at risk. Customer relationships provide your business with more options, and strong relationships can be very forgiving of the occasional misstep, meaning your business is more resilient and your plans can be bolder. Further—and perhaps even more important—technology-centric business models limit your offerings and growth potential, so they are associated with lower valuations over the long term.
Come on Now Social Networking - You’re Losing Gas
By Marsha Keeffer on June 13, 2008
Om Malik has a juicy article about social networking on Giga Om. Google CEO Eric Schmidt never misses an opportunity to dis the social networking sector, typically by pointing out how hard it is to monetize social media inventory. Which…
1,000 True Fans
By Marsha Keeffer on March 5, 2008
Kevin Kelly’s latest entry from ‘The Technium’ continues his take on the long tail. The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of…
Anticipation …
By Nilofer Merchant on November 4, 2007
Persistent rumors that Google is launching a mobile “platform” based on open business models could culminate tomorrow, November 4, 2007. Here’s the link “href=”http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20071103/tc_pcworld/139240” I found. Bunches more online this afternoon so I have to believe that something BIG is…
Marvel Story
By Nilofer Merchant on November 2, 2007
Marvel Comics used to sell comic books. That was their business. They created comics, they sold them in the form of books. Then, one day, they realize that the real asset isn’t the publishing business. Which is what they had directly built. What they had indirectly built is characters that had stories. And those were assets.
Competitive Strategy: Strong #2 uses Open (Permeable) Play
By Nilofer Merchant on August 5, 2007
Worth noting: Tim’s perspective on Hadoop integration at Yahoo: With this being the key point: OK — but why is Yahoo!’s involvement so important? First, it indicates a kind of competitive tipping point in Web 2.0, where a large company…
New Model for Competitive, Market Power ??
By Nilofer Merchant on March 27, 2007
I’m at the O’Reilly conference of Emerging Technology and it’s giving me just the right setting (and time away from the day job of leading Rubicon) to capture an idea I’ve been brewing for some time. Because the work I…
The Holy Grail of the SMB Market
By Nilofer Merchant on February 28, 2007
I’ve been working with many a new client who wants to reach the SMB market. These are traditional enterprise companies who want to expand. And they the SMB market as a viable one to pursue for growth. But this market…
Dinosaur Defense Strategy / Consumer Software Companies
By Nilofer Merchant on February 11, 2007
A colleague who works within one of my company’s clients writes this email to me about a month ago: “I still find myself scratching my head at how to apply this line of advice (referring to a white paper…
Top 10 Trends for 2007
By Nilofer Merchant on January 27, 2007
For work this month, I wrote some “top 10 trends” for what my team and I think should matter to those high-tech firms that want to win… details of all of these are available here. Top 10 Trends for 2007…
Worthy Adobe Intel
By Nilofer Merchant on January 24, 2007
Check out a good piece of early sleuthing by Malik on Flash as a fundamental platform for software 2.0. Apparently, Adobe’s purchase of amicma suggests some new aspirations for the Flash technology giant. Let’s not forget the Adobe has the…
Will Vista be the last great O/S?
By Nilofer Merchant on December 18, 2006
George Gilder of Wired has a article worth slowing down and reading. What it supposes is that the desktop is dead and that the Internet cloud is our future. He calls it the dawning of the petabyte age….
Symbiotic Relationships in Play
By Nilofer Merchant on November 30, 2006
One of the fundamental truths about the high technology market today, is that consumers have tremendous power. Market power used to be much like a big castle surrounded by high walls and a moat to control access — Dell, Intel,…
Collective Intelligence: What is it really?
By Nilofer Merchant on November 14, 2006
One idea discussed at the web 2.0 conference was “what is collective intelligence”. Is it what some have said about things like Yahoo’s Flicker — that community tagging allows all to more easily find content they couldn’t have found…
Top 10 Ideas from Web 2.0 Summit
By Nilofer Merchant on November 11, 2006
My top 10 ideas or reflections from Web 2.0 conference this week in San Francisco. #1 There’s a real Heirarchy in Value Creation Apps beat features. Online applications beat packaged applications. “Open” applications beat online applications (meaning those you can…
“Outsides” building your stuff?
By Nilofer Merchant on October 29, 2006
Recently, Yahoo announced they were letting “outsiders” build their email solution. Why would they do that, some might ask? Why would they not, is what I’m thinking. Get the best ideas to come help you and not only will it…
SaaS avoids the Blue Plate Special
By Nilofer Merchant on September 11, 2006
Marketing Profs kindly published part 5 of a 6 part series about 2 weeks back. Just catching up from last week’s break, and wanted to share it with you. It’s on the new licensing/pricing models coming up. ——— Do you…
How are Synergy and Ajax Technology related?
By Nilofer Merchant on August 26, 2006
When buzz starts to happen in Silicon Valley, the same terms are used over and over again, with a completely different definition for the same words. Yesterday, a client of ours came in for a quick-stop ‘consultation’ to review a…
Developer Programs Key to Upward Cycle
By Nilofer Merchant on August 16, 2006
In grade school, one of the key determinants of popularity on the playground was how quickly you were selected when the time came to choose up sides for basketball, baseball or soccer. In the same way, the developing business model…
Don’t be the Dinosaur Brought down by Mosquitos
By Nilofer Merchant on August 10, 2006
Emerging Business Models can destroy your current business Working in Silicon Valley, there are a few hundred new acronyms and technologies introduced each year that need to be understood. Being a trusted advisor means that clients need my firm and…
Metrics: Getting rid of Voodoo in Marketing
By Nilofer Merchant on August 4, 2006
It’s time for marketing to get out of the realm of voodoo and spin, to create a more defensible position for budget dollars and develop a more secure “seat at the table” by demonstrating the business champion skills they…
Hype vs. Real Emerging Models for High-Tech Industry
By Nilofer Merchant on June 3, 2006
I’ve been home sick a lot lately. First a cold that needed steroids to knock out, later a stomach flu which the whole family bonded over, and now a fever my son and I are sharing. (Let that explain…
Is Adobe going to get crushed by the Big Guy?
By Nilofer Merchant on June 2, 2006
The Journal reported today that talks between MSFT and Adobe broke down earlier this week. The issue is whether PDF will become a built-in feature of Microsoft’s office.
This is not a one way assault on Adobe, but a fundamental tension on who will innovate the platform and UI of the industry. Adobe has plans of it’s own that will make Microsoft the equivalent of plumbing. Needed but not discussed.
Looking forward, what will be the real impact of SaaS?
By Nilofer Merchant on May 14, 2006
The real impact of SaaS business model is the new way to sell to Enterprise customers.
Sparked!
By Nilofer Merchant on May 10, 2006
Last night, a little venue called Spark was held. The notion was to connect really smart people - who are down-to-earth good leaders in high-tech - to learn from our firm the latest on transforming business and marketing models,…
What’s Next for Technology Innovation in the Valley
By Nilofer Merchant on May 9, 2006
Wanted to share with you an article that captures the fundamental shift in the technology innovation model. Some people call this shift ‘atomized’ software development. With AJAX (a new form of development using Javascript and XML), weaving together applications is…
Talk with, not At
By Nilofer Merchant on May 8, 2006
An industry commentary on how marketing in high-tech is changing. I think there’s way more ahead than banner ads and search word optimization when it comes to high-tech consumer marketing. I think that we will move from non-personal ways of advertising to customer engaged ways of connecting. I have provided some examples as illustrations and then provided what I think it means.
Ecosystems now matter
By Nilofer Merchant on April 19, 2006
I know I’m becoming more of an introvert. I now think about things that happened 2 weeks ago and assign meaning to them. Or does that mean, I’m pondering. Hmmm. Well, anyways, that’s the context to my writing about Software 2006…
The Customer Experience: The Design Moment of Truth
By Nilofer Merchant on April 9, 2006
Business 2.0 ran an article this month on their ‘2nd annual bottom line design awards’. The article promised to “go beyond surface beauty to single out objects that look good not just in pictures, but also on their makers’ income…
Where is this Software World Going?
By Nilofer Merchant on March 11, 2006
I wish I had an answer for the emerging business trends in software, and how they’ll play out. I can’t see the horizon very well but I do have some clouds to gaze at in the meantime. I am interested…
Another Cisco Move
By Nilofer Merchant on March 11, 2006
Cisco made another move to the vertical security space yesterday. They bought a company for $51M and 27 people that provides them video surveillance capabilities. This acquisition maps well to what they’ve done well, meaning buying smaller innovative teams that…
Unlike ASPs, SaaS is Hotter than it Looks
By Nilofer Merchant on March 2, 2006
I think SaaS (Software as a Service) is potentially the biggest issue facing software firms today. This formerly “ASP” (application service provider) model blipped back in ‘97-‘00. And it seemed to fail. But, in fact, I think the issue…