Competitiveness and Innovation
To illustrate the principles of value creation, consider these two hypothetical vignettes from everyday life. Vignette 1 – A Visit to the Doctor You pay a non-routine visit to your doctor. The doctor’s first question is, “What kind of pills would you like today?” Your reaction? You’re shocked at the incompetence, and look for another doctor. […]
Sharp readers of the KVC Workbook (Version 3.1) have spotted several typos: Page 3, right column, 1st paragraph – change “necessary” to “necessarily” Page 5, 1st line – change “rather” to “father” Page 5, right column, 2nd paragraph – after “more”, insert “than” Page 6, right column, 3rd paragraph, 6th line – change “the” to “to” […]
The Knowledge Agency has moved! After a successful five-year run on Fifth Avenue, we’ve moved west to the Hudson River waterfront. Effective November 1, 2007, TKA’s address is: The Knowledge Agency® 548 West 28th Street New York, NY 10001, USA That’s in the Hudson Yards area the New York Times recently profiled as one of the fastest-developing […]
September 6, 2007, NEW YORK—The Knowledge Agency® (TKA) today announced the availability of The Knowledge Value Chain® (KVC) Workbook, Version 3.1. “This marks the first time we’ve made our workbook available separately from our clinics and workshops,” said Tim Powell, TKA Managing Director and developer of the KVC model. “In order to get the full […]
September 4, 2007, NEW YORK—The Knowledge Agency® (TKA) today announced the availability of The Knowledge Value Chain® (KVC) ClinicTM, version 3.1. TKA Managing Director Tim Powell said, “The KVC Clinic gives us the chance to work directly with companies to bring the benefits of the KVC model into companies to solve their intelligence and knowledge […]
When I started my own business in 1991, my late father showed a more keen interest in my career than he had previously. He had gone into business for himself late in his own career (as a business writer), and I always found his insights helpful. I always gave him whatever papers and books on […]
It is said that intelligence is the eyes and ears of the enterprise, and this is a useful analogy in some respects. In the obvious sense, through our eyes and ears we take in sensations that in effect are the “data collection” functions of the human body. These sight and sound sensations would just be […]
Why are some resources (in the US, at least) managed by government, while others are managed by the private sector (that is, business)? Simply put, some resources are public by nature—roads, for example, and the armed services—and are therefore managed collectively. Other resources—manufacturing, for example—are best run by private enterprise. Intelligence is conducted both in […]
Competitiveness and Innovation
The late Theodore Levitt, professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, was a champion of customer benefits as the benchmark for value in marketing. As he memorably put it, customers don’t really want a drill—they want a hole. That single insight fundamentally changes the way you develop and position products. The same could be said […]
I didn’t start out to become a business researcher (though, in hindsight, that was the first professional role I was paid for). I started out to become a physician, and completed the four year-long courses needed to enter medical school—inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, and biology. This took much of my time, energy, and waking […]
I’ve been doing research for business clients for forty years. That’s a lot of research. (It also means I’ve made just about every mistake possible—at least once!) When I started, each project looked very different-the details seemed to loom large. I struggled with how to develop a unique approach for each one. Several hundreds of […]
The age of modern management began with Frederick Winslow Taylor. He worked in the early years of the 20th century studying production processes in a steel factory. Taylor argued that by understanding a process “scientifically”, we could make significant improvements upon it. These improvements could be used to increase productivity, pay better wages, and generally […]