One of the key contributions of Harvard Professor Michael Porter is popularly known as the Five Forces. Simply put, it defines the five major forces that affect profitability in an industry. These five forces are bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, competitive intensity, threat of new entrants as well as threat of substitutes. One of the many features […]
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The Philippine Franchise Association (PFA) is the Philippines’ pioneer and largest franchise association. It’s officers list includes the who’s who of business with Samie Lim of BLIMS Furniture as chairman emeritus, Yvette Orbeta of Wendy’s as chairperson, Bing Limjoco of Francorp and Robert Trota of Max’s Group as vice chairmen and Franklin Go of Goldilocks as president . Its membership […]
Execution involves having the capabilities to get the job done. In Mansmith’s implementation workshop, we call this the 3Cs of capabilities – coordination, competency and commitment. This helps in solving company’s execution obstacles by replacing traps with tools. A most fundamental problem in execution is when people create assumptions that someone else in the company will do certain tasks and […]
One of the questions often asked in my marketing seminars is about defending against attacks from competition and even substitutes. When brands become successful, they are bound to attract the attention of others who may want to share a piece of the pie. My advice to clients is to understand the pattern of competitive attacks and to never underestimate competition. Be sensitive to the obvious signs of a potential attacker – new […]
A few years ago, I was one of the plenary speakers of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship’s Go Negosyo Youth Summit. Let me share the five highlights of my talk on “Grow from Failures” where I talked about many business failures from my early days, some of which I also wrote in my book “The WE Entrepreneur”. 1. I was 23 years […]
There are so many ways major retailers selling fast moving consumer products (FMCG) in the Philippines can make money beyond buy and sell. Mansmith conducted interviews with manufacturers on their cost of selling, which revealed a list of at least 30 different charges that are or can be imposed by key retailers one time or another. When introducing new products, […]
Without a market-driving strategy, a marketing plan focusing solely on the served market is incomplete as it risks losing the underserved or unserved markets (sometimes even bigger than current customers) to other competitors. Thus, market-driving strategy should be viewed as a source of innovation and growth for old businesses as well as a new and major revenue source of firms. Market-Driving […]
MLM is an acronym for Multi-Level Marketing, also known as network marketing. It is a form of direct selling but with the compensation plan as its core innovation; rewarding sales from people directly and indirectly recruited. The MLM compensation plan is designed in a way that network members will recruit their own downlines, which used to be the never ending […]
I normally write marketing articles and do Q&A with industry movers and shakers in this blog, but I would like to deviate from that and instead, write about the hospitality industry. My start-up company in Jakarta started selling Waters Bio Mineral Pot for homes in the 4th quarter of 2014. To accelerate our sales, I began to visit my company, […]
There are so many little things that corporate leaders ignore. Just take a look at the following industries and you can see many blind spots. Some examples of old truths that are still unchallenged to date are: In the retail banking industry, there is no fun and enjoyable experience while inside a retail bank. For the supermarket industry, shoppers have no choice […]