6 Major shifts in Corporate Philanthropy, new Report Finds

Corporate philanthropy has undergone major change as per business analysis conducted by the Forbes publication. Companies are getting involved to eventually engage fully with activities of social welfare. The subjects of the philanthropy are now experienced enough to recognize genuine efforts from those that simply aren’t. Senior management of the organization must be involved in the actual execution. Fresh recruits these days have a stronger voice than in times past and these people often exhibit genuine idealism towards social welfare. Philanthropy ahs moved away from being an activity conducted by large firms, to one that is being pursued by small and medium players as well. Crucially, corporate strategy, goals and employee interests are now being closely aligned with non-profit needs.

The impact of healthy employees to the Bottom Line

Business research conducted by the World Economic Forum has clearly pointed out to the fact that organizations with an overall healthier set of employees perform two and a half times better and have eight times more dedicated team members. Organizations such as SAP, Google, Virgin and American Express have been among the better performers in this regard. Due to the advent of Big Data, the amount of information we have is enormous and this provides us the opportunity to reduce health related disorders by a big margin as about a third to his data available is related to healthcare. Also healthcare costs may be reduced substantially.

Effective Marketing is about creating a movement, not selling a Product 

Kegan Schouwenburg who is the CEO of SOLS, creator of 3D printed orthotic insoles, says that marketing is much more than selling, in fact it is about creating a movement. She says that SOLS as an organization knows what it stands for and the values it delivers to its customers that are unique. She provides us management consulting by giving the example of the orthotic insoles and how any segment of the population can get connected with the product as it is a key requirement yet, not provided by others in the industry. Stories are created around several kinds of people who are users of the product.  

9 Millionaire Entrepreneurs turned Authors 

Some highly successful entrepreneurs have used their vast knowledge of the business world to subsequently write books. Some have been more successful than others. Richard Branson wrote Losing my Virginity, obviously referring to his Virgin group companies. Bill Gates is known to have penned down Business @ The Speed of Thought. Jessica Livingston meanwhile wrote Founders at Work. The somewhat different Enchantment was written by Guy Kawasaki. Vineet Bajpai is considered an expert at Management Consulting among Indian writers and his book The Street to the Highway is considered an expert’s take on the subject of entrepreneurship. Midas Touch has been written by Donald Trump. Kris Jones of Pepperjam fame is famous for having written Search Engine Optimization, which is a highly influential book for digital marketing practitioners. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen have co-authored Influence. Finally, The Blueprint has been written down by PayPal founder Peter Thiel.

The 100 year History lesson on Operations and MarTech

Marketing as an art has evolved over the past hundred odd years. The 1920s was the first time the idea of accountable marketing was put in place where budgets had to co-relate to sales. There was not much data however, then to back up ideas and evaluate business results. The 1970s can be termed as the pre-teen years of the marketing world as lots of business innovations and experiments were then taking place. In the absence of present day online tools, business intelligence was tracked using customer information on magazines where ‘bingo cards’ were used. The 1980s were the ‘teenage years’ where technology entered marketing in the form of barcode readers. Marketers were now accurately able to track customer preferences. Now the concept has evolved to Pipeline Marketing which evaluates the entire marketing chain and measures effectiveness individually at each stage. Dashboards are now much more reliable than ever.

7 Ways to thank People in your Network

Being successful at the work place is often much more than personal ability but a lot to do with team work and collaboration. On a regular basis, people both within or outside the organization help us achieve our targets. Management consulting publicationHarvard Business Review has come up with seven ideal ways to thank them. A hand written thank you note might sound old fashioned but it personalizes the gratitude rather than online or mass printed versions. The thanks could even be communicated using a personalized video note. We might even gift them something fun. Often getting two or more people together can bring them lot of success eventually. One can offer to help but actually deliver on the offer. Formal meetings and online chats do connect people but ultimately, informal meet-ups serve the purpose of socializing the best. Finally, a highly effective method of showing gratitude is simply to make a telephone call.

Digital Impact: Marketing, CRM and Customer Experience

Digital marketing is impacting every area of the work process these days including CRM and customer experience. The digital transformation needs to be managed keeping all points in check. Digitization has also ensured that information can be passed on easily and does not remain embedded in silos. Any organization must first create a culture where digital platforms can be used fruitfully. Also experts’ solicitation must be cited to initiate activities before operations can be handled in-house. The top management however remains accountable for the end results.

Innovation and Leadership in the Workplace of the Future

While most organizations realize only too well that business innovation is of utmost importance, many of them fail to create a conducive environment for the same. For some others, innovations may be developed, but not scaled for use on commercial basis. One such example would be Kodak which itself invented digital film, but failed to gain market share beyond the film technology where it was the market leader. Engagement with existing employees is a necessary part of gauging innovative ideas. Innovation usually takes much lesser time to implement in startups rather than traditionally managed larger firms. 

Why Harvard, Stanford MBAs ditched banks for Silicon Valley’s Google, Amazon

Banks used to be the top recruiters from top business schools such as Harvard, MIT Sloan and Stanford, but business research conducted by Business-Because suggests the trend is shifting. Technology companies are increasingly being the choice of employment for a number of MBAs and thus fresh graduates are moving to Silicon Valley rather than Wall Street. Jobs at Silicon Valley provide more flexible working options and improved perks as opposed to more rigid Wall Street financial firms. Goldman Sachs and Citibank continue to be dislodged from the top of the pie by firms such as Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Amazon. For obvious geographic reasons, the biggest such shift is occurring at Stanford and Berkeley but even northern institutes such as Harvard and Michigan Ross are exhibiting this change.

Six Signs of a broken Corporate Culture

Forbes, which is a leading management consulting publication has provided us a list of six signs which clearly indicate that the culture of a firm is broken and in need of repair. The corporate strategy of the firm remains a mystery at firms where the corporate culture is broken. In such firms, the attrition levels remain high, yet nobody openly confesses to the same. People stop telling the truth and instead behave unnaturally. Negative vibes are a constant part of such firms and when decisions are made, the allusions towards failures are routinely made. The blame game is played where personnel are openly shamed in front of their team mates. Finally, in such cultures, the joy and creativity is completely eliminated from the work.

How Marketers can Personalize at Scale

Marketing has moved away from mass produced products towards customized offerings. Tailor made offerings however are considered beyond the scope for most firms due to the high costs involved. Thus there is a need to personalize but at scale. To accomplish this, the integration between the 3 Ds has been suggested by Harvard Business Review, which is a leading management consulting publication. Those 3 Ds are – data discovery, content distribution and decision making. The right functional support is needed, and this requires a coordinated strategy. The campaign must be managed by an experienced team. Constant business analysis should be made using data analytics. Finally, what is needed is top notch content.   

Why Business Schools aren’t producing Human Resources Experts

During the 1980s, American companies learnt a lot from Japanese business practices. Lean production and Kaizen were concepts which got well integrated. Indeed Toyota took over one of General Motors’ worst run plants in California and turned it into an operational success. These initiatives across industries were partly possible due to excellent talent management practices. It does not seem that right now any of these will work our primarily because the business schools aren’t churning out enough quality professionals in the field of human resources. Reasons cannot be explained but there are many possibilities for this low churn. Most MBA institutes do not have separate HR departments. In fact the field has got sub divided into so many smaller sections that professionals from sociology, psychology and labour economics do not seem to appreciate each others’ virtues or issues. Also innovations lag in the teaching of HR and not much technology has been integrated to the same. The State University of New York in Albany is amongst the new breed ones which is trying to bridge this gap but more such are needed.

3 Tips for Turning a Company into a Brand

Business research conducted has provided us some tips which can help turn companies into top brands. First of all awareness must be built about the products or services on offer. The approach towards the market must be consistent across all channels. Case studies have proven to be an extremely powerful and potent method to broadcast company information. Case studies also help in digital marketing as these are easily available online and can be sourced by the information seekers with maximum ease.