When Comcast made its unsolicited bid for Disney back in February, it seemed like an odd move: Comcast is an infrastructure company: It's supposed to just supply the pipes that companies like Disney provide the programming to send down.
In an in-depth interview with Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast (Jacksonville's cable operatore). we find out how the company is looking at the future, and why the Disney deal was so important to the company:
Like a card player who has tipped his hand, Mr. Roberts acknowledged with the bid that Comcast needed more exclusive programming to complement its national cable network. The combination would have transformed Comcast from an ordinary cable operator - of the type that are increasingly being treated by Wall Street like reliable but slow-growing utilities - into a media company with the clout to battle Time Warner, Viacom and the News Corporation.
Mark Hurst's claim to fame is popularizing the idea that customer experience matters, that it's not just nice to have, say, a website that's easy to use, but that it's vital for a company's bottom line.
In his blog, Hurst is now talking about why advertising isn't the key to keeping customers:
The most effective companies realize that they can't succeed on advertising alone; the customer matters. For those companies operating online, customer experience isn't a list of "website usability guidelines." Instead, customer experience requires a transformation of the company's strategy, backed up by the organization, investing with a reasonable budget.
Most people who sign up for Friendster and its ilk are probably more interested in getting dates than in getting business. (We're not talking about the websites where getting dates is a business.)
But Xeni Jarden points to some interesting ways that small enterpreneurs can use social networks to make contacts that can help them build their company.
But there is growing evidence to support claims that some social networking services (SNS for short) can be a powerful professional ally to businesses — in particular, independent entrepreneurs and smaller companies, for whom each new personal connection is a significant business building block.
Oh, wait, they don't mean those type of brands ...
Last week in Getting Ahead we spoke with Dan Cathy -- CEO of Chick-Fil-A -- about the importance of branding.
Now, in its upcoming issue, BusinessWeek comes out with a special report on the power of passionate consumers during its annual look at the best global brands.
But these days the relationship between brands and their customers has become much more complex. For one thing, consumers simply know more than they used to. The Internet opens up a wealth of information, allowing for instant price and quality comparisons. But consumers demand more from the brands they love than simple reliability; passionate consumers want their brands to become a form of self-expression. Increasingly, consumers are customizing products and services to achieve that -- whether it's tailoring colors on a pair of sneakers from Nike Inc. or adding items to their personal to-watch list on eBay.
Among the companies BW examines are Coca-Cola, Starbucks and McDonalds, all members of its 10 most valuable brands group. (Here's the complete list.)
Strategy+Business has a fascinating story (free subscription required) on how the "good governance" movement might actully be hurting investors:
But the sun is not yet shining on executive suites and boardrooms. For the first time in our research — the most comprehensive ongoing survey of the demographics and performance characteristics underlying chief executive succession worldwide — we are seeing evidence that the contemporary governance movement is presenting CEOs and boards with a leadership dilemma of “lady-or-the-tiger” dimensions. Despite the one-year respite, companies remain focused on firing overcompensated, underperforming chiefs — the rate of CEO dismissals increased by 170 percent from 1995 to 2003. Yet that singular obsession appears to be contributing to lower average shareholder returns.
The story is based Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of CEO succession, and the authors -- while not arguing against good corporate governence -- think that company leaders, directors, and shareholders should re-examine how such programs are conducted.