While startups struggle to gain some big of recognition, big companies get into trouble because of too much recognition sometimes. Resident contributor, wannapreneur, looks at such a conundrum. But such a problem is better than not having any marketing success, ain’t it?

In the world of branding, it is often that the ultimate goal that marketing wants to pull off is to turn their product brands into a ubiquitous household name. To some extent, a number of brands have managed to pull this off. Firms like Google, Photoshop and Xerox come to mind as they have been so well-known. These well known names have even become verbs with the meaning “to search online”, “to manipulate digitally” and “to make copies”. In fact, there is an online database filled with examples of such proprietary eponyms.

However, at the same time, the legal teams of these companies are freaking out as they see this as an improper usages of their trademarks – possibly detrimental to their brand name’s integrity? They are beginning to set guidelines for the proper usage of their brand names, like Adobe is doing for their Photoshop product. A blog post regarding Google’s trademark also appeared in the The Official Google Blog. From the legal perspective, the danger lies in that if the brand name becomes too generic and becomes accepted by people in such a manner, it would cause them to become generic names that are not owned by anyone. In order to avoid losing their multi-million dollar trademarks in this manner, companies have to show that they are actively trying to stop their trademarks from gradually becoming generic and some possible avenues are to run advertisement campaigns to stregthen their brand names or to urge the public at large and sometimes writers specifically to make use of trademarks properly.

But, there is some doubt as to the effectiveness of such guidelines on external parties. Within these companies, it would be sensible and very possible for them to set protective rules on how these elements of their corporate identity (like logos and taglines) present a coherent and consistent image of the company. A sensible first step which any company should take.

So, paradoxically, what is probably the greatest measure of marketing success for companies may in fact turn out to be a great legal problem for them.

[ Also : Digg - The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a Verb ]

Just managed to get my hands on this book and it sure is a good read whether your run an organisation or are just a part of a organisation. this book covers lessons that apply to both leaders as well as frontline staff in all types of organisations. I didn’t even know that there was a book linking maneuver warfare and business when I did this previous post of mine. But this book is great in that it offers case studies that substantiate the seven guiding principles of maneuver warfare, which are :

1. Boldness - The daring to move majority or resources behind a caculated opportunity to achieve maximum results.

2. Surprise – To make use of ambiguity and/or stealth to strike where the opponent least expects and hence, is least ready to counteract.

3. Focus - In line with the first principle of boldness, there needs to be a focal point where all efforts are targetted at to avoid spreading out forces too thinly, resulting in a short-lived breakthrough which the opponent can react to and catch up given time.

4. Decentralized Decision Making – To build up initiative and leadership from the lowest ranks who are empowered to make split-second decisions that can affect the organisation as a whole. The key here is to applaude well-meaning attempts that failed honesty while punishing opportunities lost to indecision and inactivity.

5. Tempo - Keeping up the momentum of efforts to force the opposition into a reactionary position constantly. This allows for you to manage and choose the scenario of confrontation to your advantage. Push the opponent up against the wall to succeed.

6. Combined Arms – The tight integration of complementary assets and resources to increase synergies as well as to create a lose-lose scenario for the opponent. This calls for the different departments of an organisation to work closely with one another to capitalise on combined strength while mitigating individual weaknesses

7. Reconnaissance Pull – Making decisions based on information from the frontlines and not from upper management who may not havea glimpse of the actual situation. This is takeaway from the military where recon scouts are used to gather battlefield intelligence and spot the enemy’s weak points then communicate with the followup forces to “pull’ them forward through the most advantageous routes.

[Official Book Site : The Marine Corps Way]

Contributed by Wannapreneur
And so in the age where more folks want to be their own bosses, there has been a lot of people who are starting off in the retail sector, be it from online stores to retail chains. But no matter the scale of the business, one of the first questions that needs to be answered is “Where am I to look for suppliers / distributors?”

It may not be an easy question to answer but here are some tips you can use to find the distributors and suppliers for a particular range of products in your industry :

1. Official Manufacturer Webpages – First stop made should be to the official website of the company whose product lines you are trying to stock. They typically have a list of local/regional distributors who can supply you.
2. Online Trade Directories – Next thing which can be done without even leaving the house would be to check out online trade directories like Alibaba.com or Exporters.sg. It may be a little messy though.
3. Online Forums – Joining an online forum which caters to a base of users of your product has multiple benefits. First, you may get to find out where the source of the goods are coming from and which retailers are doing well in the industry. Next, you get a feel the type of products consumers need and want to buy. Also, if you play you cards right, you may just be given the chance to sell to this group of key target consumers.
4. Trade Shows – These should be deemed as the pilgrimages needed if you are serious about being in the know and being the first to stock latest products. Typically, the only problem is that major trade shows are held only in the States or Europe so an overseas trip is inevitable (which can also be a great break if you take it that way).
5. Trade Journals/Magazines – Second best approach if you cannot make it abroad to trade shows would then be to subscribe to a good trade journal where manufacturers tend to advertise their latest offerings. Don’t try to save by getting a second-rate subcription as you may just be shortchanging yourself on valuable information.
6. Phone Directory – Looking under the type of products you require would probably net you the contact details of a couple of importers and general traders who bring in the line of stuff you want. Simple.
7. Distributor’s Labels – For smaller items (especially for foodstuff), the distributor may place their stickers on each individual box. A part of me think it may be for regulation purposes and another part thinks it may be a bid to get in touch with more retailers. In any case, such details are a good way to link in with the local distributor so keep an eye out for these!
8. Packaging Cartons – Typically, goods come in packed in SKU of cartons and these may get strewn around in the shops. Taking a peek at the print on these boxes may yield some clue as to where they originated or passed through.
9. Gift Floral Arrangements – This one is a particularly Singapore (I feel) angle on things but when a competitor (especially a large one) opens a new outlet, their main suppliers may make gifts of floral arrangements to congratulate them. Though, these may not exactly give you more information over what you can find out using the preceeding methods, it does serve as a guage to the level of relatonship betwen the retailer and the supplier.
10. Word on the Street – The last method, but some feel is the most important, is to know the word on the street. This means that you have to be talking to the suppliers you currenly have, the other retailers in the industry and to your own customers. These days, even customers may have read or heard about things in the industry you have not know about yet so keep your ears open!

So there you have it. It may sound simple but it’s only a start to the followup work that you have to do once contact is established. Most of the time, lack of volume / credit-worthiness / physical presence may be issues but not are not things that cannot be solved by some good ol’ negotiation.

Have fun!

If you have heard by now from TechCrunch and BBC, Google has now acquired YouTube for $1.65bn (£883m) in shares and officially announced the deal yesterday (Monday). Of course, our resident, Wannapreneur, will give us an autopsy on how the initial rumours started and was propagated by the news of this big acquisition.

By now, it’s pretty old news to anyone who reads the news or keeps a lookout about all things tech-related to be aware of Google’s US$1.6 Billion offer for youTube.

But that’s not what I’m interested in looking at today, but how the ability to provide credible and timely information has shifted dramatically from traditional media to what I would call (for lack of a better term) the new media, which generally encompasses a wide range of online technologies and platforms such as blogs, forums, news aggregators and RSS feeds.

This I think is the rough chronological order (timings are guesstimate at best) by which the word about this possible buyout was spread:

1. On the night of 6th Oct, Michael Arrington posted on TechCrunch (one of the most read blogs regarding Silicon Valley startups) about an unsubstantiated rumor that Google was offering $1.6 Bn for youTube. At this point, 113 thousand subscribers of the TechCrunch RSS Feed could have instantly had a copy of this news zapped to them when they opened their RSS readers.
2. Quickly after the first post on Techcrunch, bloggers worldwide (including yours truely) scrambled to add their commentaries on the situation. New trackbacks appeared almost every 10-20 minutes. I would guess that since the news contains only 2 big names and a big dollar figure, it wasn’t distorted too much. But interestingly, according to the trackbacks, it got translated into many other languages like German, Korean and Italian.
3. Possibly still on the same night of the 6th or early on 7th Oct, word spread quickly through the blogosphere, further aided by the fact that it was got posted up on Digg, quickly attracting the attention of Digg users who then pushed it up in rank, commented on it and essentially spread the word. Easily a few more thousand online users (including Digg’s RSS Feed Readers) got wind of the news.
4. Another round of blogging on the subject by online denizens worlds. Blogosphere literally explodes with the news. According to Technorati, it seems like around 1000 more blogs posted with the keyword youTube.
5. Finally, some time later, it was noted that Wall Street Journal reported on this news citing information from “a person familiar with the matter”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good fix on when this happened. I couldn’t get my hands on the article itself as it was a subscribers-only area – so unless you could get your hands on a copy of the paper or subscribed to the online version, you wouldn’t have heard zip from it.
6. Hitwise jumps in the fun to provide some stats between youTube VS Google Video.
7. Very much later, if you are from Singapore like me, you catch some word of it quoted in the Strait Times 3 days after Time-0, in a easily missed column snuggled inside the Financial Pages.

If you ask me, what just happened displayed a great shift in the way media production and consumption works today. Newspapers and other print media are now considered slow in comparison to what online alternatives can offer. the 4 channels of blogs, forums, news aggregators and RSS Feeds work in synergy and semi-automation explode news which are deemed (1) of general interest and (2) of some standard of credibility.

What happened here is a study of influence. To be able to generate and spread news that in a tsunami fashion in a matter of mere hours is something unfathomable before and frankly, a very serious threat that traditional media should be (and I think they are) aware of. Production of conventional media alone may take hours already, not to mention the collation, editing, verification and (after production), distribution of the media.

On the flipside, it is important to know that credibilty of traditional media is still something of a forte for them though the online generation is fast learning to accept lower levels of validation in exchange of a much more rapid speed of news transmission. Also, unlike print media, online information can be correctly much more rapidly also, making for more tolerance for errors, given that they are rectified promptly.

I don’t profess to be an authority on how the new media may develop but from what I just saw from the youTube case, these are going to be interesting times indeed.

For a tech company, or for any other industry for that matter, heading down the golden road of an IPO, a lot of technicalities come into play and it generally becomes a time of housekeeping in preparation to launching (and hopefully skyrocketing) on the public exchange. Part of the “necessary evils” of the legal paperwork for companies hoping to list in the States is to file their prospectus with the SEC to give their potential investors more details of the business and its future direction.It’s a chore of sorts for companies but an absolute gem for entrepreneurs and here are 5 reasons why I think you should read them:

1. Learn exactly what the company does — Often, before a company goes public, there would be quite a buzz on what they plan to do and commentaries following their progress. These are mostly made by industry watchers and may or may not be all that accurate. The prospectus of a firm headed for IPO would typically splash out its mission statement / strategy / strengths in the first couple of pages. Generally I would say that these documents are excellent reads for entrepreneurs are in early stage / business plan writing stage also.
2. Get an good summary of what the industry looks like — Firms which hit the IPO stage must have been doing something right to land where they are. Having deep industry understanding and insight would be one of those things that the founders/management possessed and reading about how they write about it gives you a quick heads-up on how the industry and market as a whole is faring.
3. Get a feel of possible pitfalls along the way — With the good also comes the bad: the firm is also legally obligated to disclose the possible risks that they face in their expansion plans. Similar to their long-honed industry insights, these pitfalls they raise may be important ones that you should be aware of if you have a startup and plan to move into this same field. Chances are the firm planning to IPO may have hit and learnt some of these lessons the hard way and/or spent a good amount of money and resources to identify their potential blind spots when moving forward. Reading their brief points gives you that almost instantly and for free.
4. Learn more about the important financial and legal concepts — Have to admit that this is my weak spot so being able to thumb through the financial reporting section helps give an idea of the margins / volume the firm in question has. Bulk of it may be legalese and finance-ese but going through and learning how to understand these are important not only to entrepreneurs but also investors.
5. Understand corporate structure and other important details a growing company faces — A tad obscure and may not be spelt out in plain but for some interesting cases (eg: Baidu’s IPO) you can learn more about how the firm is structured to cope with regulatory / tax issues. Similarly, some companies like to have the founders expound a little on their growth story so it makes for a good inspirational and informational read on the trials and tribulations a firm faces in its journey from startup to IPO.

Just for information, some of the ones I’m trying to go through now are: Google, Baidu and Shutterfly.

Can definitely find more interesting ones on the SEC Filings and Forms website.

Have fun!

(This post was inspired by golden advice from Coen who is right when he says we don’t read up enough these days and recommended Google’s Prospectus as a first reading.)

I love tough times.

That is because these are the moments when you actually spot the best teams and to some extent, the best leaders. The truth of the matter is that during the blissfully good periods, everyone (and I do mean everyone) can be made to look like a superb leader or team player. This is the same principle that states that it is far easier to look good steering a ocean liner on calm seas then it is keeping a rickety sailboat afloat in stormy seas.

And a large proportion of it boils down to team during these dark periods. Bad times filter out these superfical folk. Not more fair-weather friends hanging around and all the once-good team players seem to do disappearing acts.

No doubt, tough times test passion. These are times where you keep going on as a team. And the best people to work with are those who argue with you for the sake of the cause. Embrace these people because they keep your from getting too one-sided. I know that all too well because I have been fortunate to work with two of the most intelligent and fiercely passionate team members, and much more importantly friends, in the past year who backed me up in my blindspots of finance and relations. I deem their advice is priceless and their friendship even more so.

I’m thankful to have had the chance to work with a wonderful team of great people. It’s never easy when the going gets rough and there are times you can’t help but question the value of what you do. But what keeps you going is to be able to look around yourself and find the folks who are fighting alongside because they believe too believe in the common vision.

That is indeed the beauty.

I guess no one can deny that information equates to power. But its no longer about just possessing it that gives one an edge anymore. It is important to note what has shifted and how to cope with this new information age when thought and ideas literally travel at the speed of light. Here are 5 ways in which the way we interact with information has changed (from the perspective of a layperson like me) :

1. Having versus Finding information – In the good ol’ days before the Internet was born, information was mostly written down in black and white. So, the amount of information one had access was only roughly the summation of one’s memory and perhaps the amount of reading material one had access too. Simply put, the genius staying near a library was king then. Now, internet has opened the doors to the masses with its seemingly infinite collection of literature and data. Nearly everyone with an internet connection has equal access to this massive pool of collective knowledge. The shift then becomes that it will be the folks who benefit the most will be those who know how to find what they need, and fast. This is not to say that the ability to find information was not important in the past; it was, but it has become crucial now. And given the diversity of accumulated knowledge out there, knowing how to find information will beat having information any day.

2. Too little versus Too much information – And with the massive flood of digital information we are now subjected to, the problem we face with information quantity wise is no longer having too little of it, but too much of it. Same information can be presented in different formats these days – text, audio or video. It has taken on more mediums and similarly, begins to confuse us even more. Whereas previously, what every precious bits of information was absorbed and thought about, we have been so swarmed with data these days that we barely give a cursory glance when we reproduce it somewhere else for one reason or another. Most of the time, this adds up to more confusion which negates the benefits we reap from being able to gather data faster.

3. Relevant versus Irrelevant information – Major bane of academics, statisticians and the ike where the ruling thought is “more is better” Sadly, more is typically less. It confuses, it misleads and it causes us to miss important facts and patterns. This I believe is nurtured in education where plunking down a 10 pages paper seem to net more than a succinct 2 pager. Chances are that it was because it just have confused the heck out of the grader. May work in school but this habit is deadly in business, where getting muddled in useless information is like sinking in quicksand. Messy and deadly in both cases. This is why the skill to present not only relevant data but also the relevant trends is important. The art making tons of complex data into meaninful trends is known as data visualisation which I think is only going to become an increasingly important skill to have.

4. Accurate versus Inaccurate information – And given the large swarms of data out there, the flipside is naturally that some of it is just, well, incorrect. With the dawn of the internet age, there has never been a better time to be more curious and skeptical. Like when I said I have a list of 5 when there’s only going to be 4 points? How many folks would have just read my blurb and assumed there would be 5? And with the way information can be easily duplicated in the digital form, it would be just as easy for wrong data to appear in different places, making it seem credible. Stay critical and observant to avoid this issue.

And so, that’s how I see the way information works has changed.

So if you want to be a “knowledge worker”, better understand these trends well then!

(PS: Finally I get to use the words “shift” and “paradigm” together in a post title. Boy, do I feel like a Management Consultant with a MBA.)

Here come an interesting set of figures from the local papers today. Basically, it was a survey to find out how well our Singapore sales staff are doing on these 7 factors — Appearance, Ambience, Attitude, Acquisition, Assistance, After Sales and Approach.

And if you’re like me, you’ll probbly be wondering why they had to force all the factors to begin with ‘A’ , making their meaning not quite so obvious. National habit I presume. Anyway, here’s the list of factors again with what they’re supposed to chart (as per the papers with my comments in brackets) :

1. Appearance – Physical Grooming of the Salesperson
2. Ambience – Store Environment
3. Attitude – Warmth Enthusiasm, Rapport and responsiveness to the consumer
4. Acquisition – Method of returning customers their change or saying “Thank you” (See why I say this is ‘forced’ ? The last time I checked in the dictionary, acquisition meant to get and not to give. Just doesn’t make sense!)
5. Assistance – How well the sales person understood the needs and preference of the customer
6. After Sales – How the sales person ended the visit (No wonder we have problems when ending the visit is as far as we are getting in terms of after sales!)
7. Approach – The reception the customer gets the moment he/she walks in.

And here’s the data (click for larger image) :

Interestingly, we scored high for both appearance and ambience while not so well for the rest. And it seems to me like that translate into the fact that we essentially have pretty good ‘hardware’ (uniforms, store settings, etc … basically things you can buy and plunk in place) but fare poorly in terms of the personal soft skills.

So, assuming that a certain firm really has this national average statistics for its stores and that it has a budget for improving service, shouldn’t it be logical that its spending for improvement look something like this orange line below? :

To thicken the plot, lets further assume that life’s simple and you can just sum up the improvements (which actually do add up to a 100%) onto the existing service level and voila!, there’s a good chance that you can bring all factors up to over 70% (black line). Pretty decent ‘A’ grade for service if you ask me.

“But, you can’t just add up figures like that!” you may say. Yeah, but that not the point I’m trying to bring across here. What I’m really trying to put across in this (over-simplistic) thought-experiment is this route of reasoning:

1. We have good facilities and hardware, but it seems like software’s not doing too well.
2. Stop plunking more cash into asset investment and look at service and training instead.
3. Salespersons’ response / behavior before, during and after customer interaction looks bad! Shouldn’t this be something that can tackled with targetted training for salespeople?
4. Best part is, if service training is done right, it should cost less than hardware upgrades.
5. In the long run, motivation and experience play big parts so getting more experienced sales personel to mentor new hires may be a valuable way to maintain good service levels.

In any case, the way I see it, the statistics been done as a public good for retailers to use as a yardstick. Let’s just see how many really do see this and make good of this knowledge.

As for the rest? They shouldn’t even be in business.

[from : Today Newspaper Article 'Not lacking in will, just skill' - August 23, 2006]

Editor’s note: This article is reproduced from Wannapreneur’s blog.

It is not easy for young people today to decide on their career path, given the uncertainty of our knowledge based economy. In a reflection piece, our resident contributor, Wannapreneur talks about the process of decision making and risk taking in life.

Contributed by Wannapreneur

Often in life, we reach decision points where we need to make a choice between 2 potentially life-altering options. Other times, we may spot an opportunity of sorts upon the horizon. These situations normally come packed with the relevant risks and given the same scenario, its very likely that different folks would approach it in different manners. However, one thing that I’ve noticed is that few actually leave the beaten track. And that’s a pity in some sense.

Personally, when it comes to making big decisions, I apply 2 different philosophies or mindsets to tackle the choice. These somewhat defines the amount of risk I can take.

Philosophy #1: Would I look back and wonder?
When facing a big decision on the horizon, the first thing I normally do is to try to figure out where each may lead to. Normally, there are only 3 outcomes. Life as usual, having taken the plunge and succeeding or taking the plunge and failing.

Most people tend to apply the cost-benefit analysis to the equation and feel that the returns for something do not justify the cost. Maybe they are right? Or maybe their minds just rationalized their risk-adverse nature into ballooning the risks far beyond what they actually are. What I do is just ask a question: If I don’t take this opportunity now, would I be looking back on this day and ten years later and imagine what it may have led to? Though slightly cliché, its rationale is clear when you look back on choices you have made previously and wonder if those paths you didn’t take could have led you to somewhere better.

And you know what? If you jumped on all opportunities, you’ve probably gotten the answer to that in the near future so you wouldn’t be wondering later. This is kind of akin to the motto that if you try something and fail, at least you learn what doesn’t work.

Philosophy #2: Does it still seem like a good idea in the morning?
Sometimes, an idea or opportunity looks so irresistibly good that you feel that you need to grab it right there on the spot. But as they always say, haste makes waste so caveat opportunist. Normally, you get sometime to make decisions so another way I measure if I should go for something is to sleep on it and if it still feels like a good idea in the morning, I’ll probably take it up. There is a warning though, not to drag things out for too long although you may have say, a week or a month to make the final call. This is because situations may change and more thought on the matter may make you more hesitant about the final go or no-go choice.

For me, this is a good way to keep crazy ideas under check also. This is especially true for those who face blinding spur of the moment optimism.

So there you have it, 2 angles I take on risk taking. May have a personal hue to it so take from it what you may.

Just a final quotation which I thought fits the theme of what I was trying to express:

“Two roads diverged in the road and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost

Related Articles:
[1] Bjorn Lee, CrossRoads of Life: Do People Die There?.

Editor’s Note: The article is reproduced from Wannapreneur’s blog.

Great, this year’s Interbrand rankings for the 100 most valuable brand names are out here.

Branding has always been something of an interest for me because it is the art of how companies shape themselves in the eyes of their consumers. An important skill for a firm to have in both good times and bad.

Not surprisingly, the top of the board are ruled by huge multi-nationals whom have spend decades on bringing their brand name and values around the globe. I’m pretty sure that many of those top contenders such as Coca-cola and Nokia have spend a substantial amount of advertising dollars into both the traditional media as well as experimenting with new avenues that the Internet offers.

Top mover (in terms of percentage increase) on the list is Internet Behemoth – Google (46%). With its rapidly expanding range of products and services coupled its strong business fundamentals in such a volatile industry, its brand value has managed to outpace its closest competitor, Yahoo (15%) , by almost 3 times. Also notable is eBay’s 18% increase in brand value, notching it 7 steps higher this year. These are the only 3 Internet Firms on this list and I’m would think that the nature of their business would allow them to increase brand value fairly rapidly over the foreseeable future.

Amongst the top ten, its interesting to see that only non-US companies, Nokia (#6) and Toyota (#7) , have seen double-digit brand value increases of 14% and 12% respectively. Perhaps this could be attributed to the fact that both companies are driving hard into project their brands into the emerging markets of Asia while developing their interests in North America at the same time. Nokia’s strength may derive from its aggressive expansion in the Asia markets, most notably China. Toyota may also be doing well in the States as more consumers are ditching their SUVs other gas guzzlers in favour of the more efficient Japanese Automobiles in the face of rising gas prices.

Its going to be interesting to see how these movers and shakers will be evolving to capture more brand value and mind share this year.

Top 100 Global Brands List [via : Digg]

Editor’s Note: This article is reproduced from Wannapreneur’s site.