The End of Best in Market

Best in Market has really become a myth in today’s world. These companies that believe this are typically product focused and determine their position by the amount of features and benefits that they have over the competition. Many times market share is not a consideration. It is also believed that continuous improvement on processes, people Read More …

Defining Lean IT with Steve Bell

The Business901 podcast guest this week is Steve Bell, the founder of Lean IT Strategies LLC. Steve is a Lean Enterprise Institute faculty member, Shingo Research Prize winning author, and Lean IT pioneer. A recent blog post, When Standard Work and Customer Focus come together contains an excerpt from the podcast. In the podcast, we Read More …

Path to Participation

In Lean Marketing, Service Design and Design Thinking, we typically use the Customer Journey Map to describe the journey of a user through a series of touchpoints. Mapping this in detail and defining the resources, people, budget and marketing collateral to match each of these steps is imperative. After an organization does this and is Read More …

Lean Marketing Game from the Inside-Out.

Seldom will you hear me utilize the phrase from the Inside-Out. In fact, after discussing Visioning in most workshops I pass out some (play) guns and ask to be shot if they hear those words at any time the rest of the day. However, there is a time and place to view sales and marketing Read More …

It all starts with a Vision!

In this weeks podcast The Aroma of a Good Vision, I asked Ari Weinzweig, CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, MI to share the “secrets” that have helped take Zingerman’s from a 25-seat, 4-person start up to a nationally known, $40,000,000-organization employing over 500 people. He said it all starts with a Read More …

Standard Work and Customer Focus Together

In next week’s podcast with Steve Bell, the founder of Lean IT Strategies LLC, we discuss more than just Lean IT. We ended up talking (see the excerpt below) through much of the podcast on the context Lean seems to have; the ability to adapt while staying firmly rooted in its principles. Joe:  Does it Read More …