strategy

May 10, 2013

Incremental Change In Exponential Times

By Doug Stephens   Over the last holiday shopping season, Amazon was clocking in 306 transactions per second!  Photo app Instagram achieved a market value of […]
April 2, 2013

What Exactly Do You Sell?

By Doug Stephens       Here’s an incredibly simple test to see just how future-ready your business is. Try answering the following question. What exactly […]
March 14, 2013

The Real Competition Isn’t Your Competitors

By Doug Stephens In the old age of business the goal for most companies was continuous improvement. The idea was to keep the engines of innovation […]
February 1, 2013

Why The Best Brands Give Customers What They Hate

By Doug Stephens Human beings are fundamentally resistant to change.  Most of us would be happy carrying on with an as-is world that is largely free […]
January 22, 2013

What If Retail Is Wrong?

By Doug Stephens Our entire concept of retail is predicated on one very simple series of paradigms; manufacturers make things, that are parceled out in smaller […]
January 2, 2013

What If Best Buy Charged Admission?

By Doug Stephens O.K., suspend your disbelief just for a moment and hear me out… In 1999, Joe Pine and James Gilmore, authors of The Experience […]
December 28, 2012

No Holiday From Reality

By Doug Stephens As holiday and comp-store full year sales are coming in, it appears that at best, the results can be characterized as mixed.  Some […]
October 19, 2012

Are You the Rock or The Hard Place?

By Doug Stephens Doc Searls, a contributor to The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of The Intention Economy once said that choosing between wireless carriers is like […]
September 16, 2012

Nordstrom Latest U.S. Chain to Join the Canadian Retail Gold Rush

By Doug Stephens Last week, upscale U.S. retailer Nordstrom was the latest in a long list of U.S. retailers who have declared their intent to enter […]