January 2011
21 posts
Be Steadfast In Prayer
Dan 6:10 When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his room toward Jerusalem) and knelt on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.
Daniel is considered to be one of the most powerful examples cited in the Bible to fulfill the cultural mandate. He had access to the kings of his day and...
Know Your Market
When Gatorade launched in China, it offered different flavours in different cities to appeal to local tastes. Gatorade identified the varying tastes through research and found that the northern city of Beijing preferred sweet tastes while the Cantonese preferred sour flavours like lemon and lime.
Halo Effect
“The basic human tendency to make specific inferences on the basis of a general impression.” Phil Rosenzweig
5 Distinct Personality Dimensions of Brands
1) Sincerity
2) Excitement
3) Competence
4) Sophistication
5) Ruggedness
“No, your job as a leader is to inspire and to galvanise, not to share your...”
– ~ Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew
Brand Personality
Product-related attributes tend to serve a utilitarian function for consumers while brand personality serve symbolic, self-expressive functions.
How to secure our future?
How to secure our future:The way does not lie in reverting to a pure service economy or having Singaporeans become strangers in their own land.-> This commentary by Ngiam Tow Dong injects brilliant foresight into a dilemma of dealing with rapidly decreasing population numbers. The doors are still swung open too quickly for the influx of foreigners to artificially make up the numbers. This will...
Marketing to women
According to some studies, women in the US and UK influence over 80% of consumer goods and services, make 75% of the decisions about buying new homes, and purchase 60% new cars OUTRIGHT. Moral of the story? Never underestimate them.
Marketing to newly weds segment
This target segment spends a total of $70billion on their households in the first year after marriage and buy more in the first six months than an established household does in 5 years!
“If you stand for everything in fashion today, you stand for nothing.”
– Paul R. Charron, former CEO, Liz Clairborne
Ignore Your Customers?
“Customers are notoriously lacking in foresight. Marketing only the articulated needs of customers you already serve cedes vast opportunities to more foresighted competition.” Hamel and Prahalad (1994)
Product Development Cycle Time Reduction
Product Development cycle time reduction - a major concern. A McKinsey study showed that under conditions of 20% growth rate, 12% price erosion, and five-year product life, a six-month delay in entry to market of can cost up to one-third of total lifetime after-tax! (Dumaine 1989 cited by Wind and Mahajan 1997)
Brand differentiation
Imitation instead of innovation serves to succeed at flattering and promoting rival brands by copying. Don’t imitate, innovate.
Enviromental Scanning
Defined as the “internal communication of external information about issues that may potentially influence an organisation’s decision-making process. (Albright 2004, in Information Management Journal)
Important for new leadership to conduct a thorough environmental scan and know the various issues in order to navigate well through uncharted waters.
One in four is a re-offender
2010 statistics (Straits Times 26 Jan 2011) show that one in four convicts in Singapore is a re-offender. It is important to not only educate but to give these people a vision and a hope for the future because a man without a vision will always return to his past.
Esther and Mordecai
Esther 4:16 - “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
The story of Esther is a powerful picture of how God raises people to places of prominence to accomplish His work....
Deliver Insights Not Mere Info
In the 1970s, there’s a successful research executive who left General Foods to bring market research to the film industry (Hollywood) and replicate success in it. A well-known film studio handed him a sci-fi film proposal and asked him to research into the possibility of its success. The executive researched and argued that the film would fail because of the Watergate scandal in the US...
Alleviating Poverty and Raising Educational...
Just read that over two-thirds of the world’s 785 million illiterate adults are found in only 8 countries - India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeri, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Egypt; of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women. The Body of Christ has a great responsibility to reach these people to raise their educational level and standard of living.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
– Michael Porter
“Your words only have the power to the degree that your life reflects the...”
– Dr Edwin Louis Cole
“Pressure does not make a man, it only exposes him for who he is. That is why the...”
– Dr A.R. Bernard