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A
short while ago, I received an email with one of those jokes
that circulates from time to time, forwarded to me by a client
with an enthusiastic subject heading: I like this one! It
was amusing but I remembered it from the early 80s when I
worked at Price Waterhouse (an accountant was the butt of
the joke) and from the early 90s when I was studying for an
MBA and the accountancy lecturer told it. Here it was again
in early 00s. The good ones keep popping up.
Similarly,
an anecdote I first heard in the 90s comes up regularly. It
involves a group of soldiers on a training exercise in the
Swiss Alps. They were trying to find their way back to base
camp when they got caught up in a blizzard and totally lost
their way. They found a shelter where one of the men pulled
a map from his pocket. Using the map, the group eventually
found their way back. The next morning, when they looked at
the map, they realised it was not of the Alps but of the Pyrenees.
The
moral of the story is about having a plan to find your way.
Any plan is better than no plan and so many businesses don't
have a plan. How do owners and managers know where to take
the business and, quite fundamentally, how can any employee
be expected to help the company achieve its goals if there
aren't any set out to be achieved?
Marketing
in the 21st Century, a report from the Marketing Research
Group at Aston University explores the differences between
best performers and weakest performers in business. A key
difference is the strategic approach taken by the best performers
and their long term marketing view rather than short term
cost-cutting exercises.
With
several years experience as a Business Advisor for Coventry
& Warwickshire Business Link, an MBA and senior management
experience in Aston University, Carole Manship and her associates
can help you to develop and implement your marketing plans.
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