How do you know how good a person’s business skills really are?   This was the question posed by the TV show The Apprentice. For those not familiar with this show, a group of people competed over a series of weeks to become the winner. Each week they were assigned...

General Electric’s successful transformation under former CEO Jack Welch, was attributed to his ability to get the company’s 250,000 or so employees “pulling in the same direction”—and pulling to the best of their individual abilities.    Another business magnate Henry Ford also said in excellence, “Coming together is a beginning...

In the bustling streets of Japan’s capital city of Tokyo, a small coffee shop named "Kohi Kōbō" faced a challenge. Its customers, even those who the owner considered loyal, were moving away.      Fierce competition from global giants like Starbucks and local favorites was causing the dip in numbers. The...

In the 1980s, IBM was the dominant technology brand, with sky-high revenue and market share. But the company failed to evolve along with customers’ computing needs, and it became siloed and dependent on hardware sales. Louis Gerstner, brought on as IBM’s CEO in 1993, led the company’s transformational shift from...

As you walk through the busy streets of New York you come across the most scrumptious looking cheesecake, you run inside to dig into it to savor every bite. But once you cut that cake, you realize it’s dry, tasteless and most definitely did not live up to the expectation...

Do you dream  of finding that perfect partner? Someone who just clicks? Who gets your jokes, shares your passions, and complements your life in every way? Well, guess what? Your business needs that kind of ideal customer  too! And that's where buyer personas come in. Buyer personas are detailed profiles...

“You can't do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results,” this piece of anecdotal wisdom is especially true for social media marketing. If a certain marketing strategy isn’t performing well, it’s your job to replace it with a method that works better. But how do you know which strategies...

It's 9 am on Monday. With a hot coffee and a to-do list, you’re ready to start the week right. Ideas flow, and productivity feels within reach. Suddenly, TING! Social media notifications flood in, and your phone flashes and vibrates. Your focus shifts. Coworkers’ loud chatter over coffee becomes distracting—were...

Equity research  forms a multi-billion dollar industry for investment banks. At its core, it involves thousands of analysts, worldwide, providing the  market  valuable information on companies, industries, and trends. What makes their work attain the hallowed status of research, and different from mere data or run-of-the-mill information, is the actionable...

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! You’ve woken up to a beeping fire alarm, smoke filling your building. Panic is bound to set in. Where's the fire extinguisher? Which way is the escape route? Heart racing, you stumble through the haze, coughing and trying to remember your fire safety plan. Can you make...