Blog

Can you see the elephant in the room?

There are many drivers of an organisation’s competitiveness, both internal and external. But one of the most important is knowledge of new competitors. By this I mean:

  • Competitors that have recently entered – or thought to be about to enter - a market segment important to you
  • competitors already strong in market segments your organisation plans to enter.

Either way you must know who they are and what kind of impact they are likely to have on your company's performance.

Seems so simple doesn’t it? Yet experience shows that ignorance of new competitors is common. Both in...

The coming crisis of declining fertility

Changes in macro factors can be major drivers of an organisations competitiveness and profitability. By “macro factors” I mean changes in sociological, technological, economic and political factors, which can have positive or negative effects on your organisation’s competitiveness. These macro factors are different from the impact of competitors. Indeed competitors will also be impacted by changes in macro factors.

But I’m not writing about competitors in this blog article. Because I want to focus on a major macro factor which is all too often imperfectly understood – demographics. We’ve all heard about...