STRAT NAV

The Sunday Times Social Media List

2011-05-17T07:51:00.002+01:00

With the very best of intentions, the Sunday Time has launched a social media monitoring tool that aims to quantify and measure the influence of social networks. Like an excited little school boy I clicked my way to their page, but was sadly disappointed. Bad luck News Corp!

E-commerce Platform Selection

2011-05-07T00:16:00.002+01:00

In the past decade, many millions of pounds have been invested by retailers in the development of platforms, systems and websites with the specific aim of growing (or defending) their market share by offering a multi-channel customer experience.

Several lessons have been learned through this decade of investment, regardless of whether the initial objectives were achieved. Sadly, there is very little by way of documentation or commentary designed to share these learnings and enable the retail sector to continue investing without wasting money re-learning. This article is designed to summarise some of the lessons of the past decade.

“We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages. Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.”
Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon, Annual Report of 1998.

The ‘Technology Landscape’ has changed dramatically in 10 years

The early pioneers of multi-channel retailing had to invest significantly in developing the skills and technologies that have come to set the standard for e-commerce. Working with development platforms like IBM Websphere and Microsoft Commerce, leading retailers adopted the ‘build your own’ approach which enabled them to tailor the integration and functionality to their specific requirements and legacy systems. In an approach that mirrored the methodology of early pure-play pioneers, many multi-channel retailers augmented these custom built systems with commercially available technologies. Amazon described its technology strategy in its 1998 annual report as:

“a combination of its own proprietary technologies and commercially available, licensed technologies”

This enabled them to rapidly develop not just the core online shopping technologies, but also the suite of merchandising, reporting and marketing tools required to compete effectively with the pure-play operators.

The ‘barrier to entry’ for retailers taking this approach was huge, due to the size of investment, skills and resource required. The fact that only retailers with deep enough pockets to overcome these challenges fuelled an explosion in ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) providers, supplying ‘off the shelf’ e-commerce platforms usually for an annual licence or support fee. Likewise, digital agencies developed ‘in-house’ systems that could be touted as low cost, off the shelf solutions that could be up and running quickly.

The downsides to the SaaS model are numerous:

The platform development strategy is entirely beyond the control of the retailer. In the competitive and rapidly evolving environment of e-commerce, it is essential that operators have the tools to move quickly to enhance customer experience, trial new price and promotion mechanics and merchandising concepts. The software platform provider however is unlikely to have the same development priorities.
There is no significant differentiation that can be achieved with a system that is designed to be a ‘one size fits all’ platform.
Future proofing. There is no guarantee that the software provider will invest in their platform year after year, or indeed, that they will continue to operate!

Until recently, the SaaS approach has been the only viable option for small and medium sized retailers looking to develop their multi-channel proposition with a fully transactional website. The most significant industry development has been the quality and stability of open source platforms available.

‘Open Source’ as a concept was developed during a meeting of industry figures in Palo Alto (USA) on 7th April 1998 in reaction to Netscape's announcement of a source code release for Navigator, as the open source brand, Mozilla.

Open source software projects began to emerge from networks of volunteer programmers. Notable examples include the Apache HTTP Server and the e-commerce platform osCommerce. One of the most successful open source products is the Linux operating system, an open source Unix-like operating system. There are some fields where open software platforms are the norm, for example VoIP applications which use Asterisk (PBX). Open source as a concept is not limited to open-source software. Microsoft has also joined the open-source discussion with the adoption of their OpenDocument format as well as creating another open standard, the Office Open XML formats.

Understanding what ‘open source’ actually means can be confusing as the distinction between “hosted solutions”, SaaS and open source has blurred.

True open source platforms must adhere to the following rules:

Free Redistribution
Source Code
Derived Works
Integrity of The Author's Source Code
No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
Distribution of License
License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
License Must Not Restrict Other Software
License Must Be Technology-Neutral

There are several reasons for adoption of open source, but the most obvious are the improved value proposition when compared to most proprietary platforms, especially in terms of:

Security
Affordability
Transparency
Perpetuity
Interoperability
Localisation

(Casson and Ryan)

Correspondingly, there are some legitimate risks associated with the adoption of open source software by enterprises. These risks include the lack of formal support and training, the velocity of change, and a lack of a long term roadmap. However, it is reasonable to argue that exactly the same risks exist with proprietary systems.

TABLE: Open Source e-Commerce Platforms

Batavi	PHP	GNU General Public License
Broadleaf Commerce	Java	Apache License 2.0
Bots (edi)	Python	GNU General Public License
Interchange	Perl	GNU General Public License
Magento	PHP	OSL Ver. 3 / AFL Ver. 3
nopCommerce	ASP.NET	Mozilla Public License
Ofbiz	Java	Apache License 2.0
osCommerce	PHP	GNU General Public License
OpenCart	PHP	GNU General Public License
osCMax	PHP	GNU General Public License
PrestaShop	PHP	OSL Ver. 3 / AFL Ver. 3
Satchmo	Python	BSD License
Ubercart	PHP	GNU General Public License
VirtueMart	PHP	GNU General Public License
Zen Cart	PHP	GNU General Public License

An important distinction is that ‘open source’ does not automatically mean ‘free’. As Richard Stallman puts it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement."

There are a number of commonly recognized barriers to the adoption of open source software by enterprises. These barriers include the perception that open source licenses are viral, lack of formal support and training, the velocity of change, and a lack of a long term roadmap. The majority of these barriers are risk-related.

“the adoption of open source alternatives to commercial software by enterprise software customers” a competitive risk factor cited in the Oracle annual report 2010.

What do I want from an e-commerce platform?
A good e-commerce platform should provide a retail business with a comprehensive suite of tools to manage their business. This should include:

Category management tools
Product management tools
Merchandising tools
Supply chain management/ inventory tools
Customer data and insight tools
Marketing tools

Is Google Instant Good for Consumers, Advertisers or Just Google

2010-09-23T23:56:00.003+01:00

In case you are in a media blackout zone, Google have started to roll out their much anticipated instant search – a new tool that returns search results while you are typing the search term. A short pause mid-keyword and it will display results based on what you have typed so far. There have been a wide range of opinions, from mild interest to sphere panic.

Consumer implications

While some will feel this is all a bit of a distraction and could lead to some very confused results, others will welcome this piece of innovation. Google has become great at finding the most relevant websites for search strings of 2 to 5 words – now, when searching for “mobile homes” a brief pause in between words will allow a load of totally inappropriate results for mobile phones. In time, this may influence consumer search behaviour by training them to input the most specific word first in order to get relevant results straight away.

However, to look at it as a distraction is actually to miss the point. How many times have you searched on Google only to find no results for what you really want. In the olden days (like yesterday) you would have to retype a more relevant or detailed string of search terms to find what you want. Now, you just pause, check and continue if there are no results that give you what you want. In this respect, it is a truly innovative development that enriches the user experience.

SEO implications

SEO is certainly a big business and so a change of this importance is always going to generate ‘mixed feelings’. There should be no need for panic however, as optimising for instant search is unlikely to be such a radical shift. Understanding the search terms which are the most profitable is an iterative process and to an extent SEO best practice will evolve as instant search is rolled out. It is certainly worth taking the time to check how your keyword databse performs on instant search under ‘normal user’ conditions – but then, as good SEO campaign should involve this anyway.

Commercial/Advertiser implications

As you would expect, this is where the real interest is and it is indeed a very important issue – the vast majority of internet advertising budgets are spent on search engine marketing (ppc/adwords) and this is dominated by Google. The biggest implications are:

1. Search impressions will increase - Lets face it, the fact that this is good for consumers is not the sole reason Google has done this. They make their billions by generating ad impressions from searches and charging advertisers when people click on them. This will certainly boost the volume of impressions they generate (increasing their effective inventory) and will almost certainly increase the volume of clicks. Advertisers will have to decide if they want to increase their budgets to maintain their share of impressions and clicks in their sector. Inevitably, impressions on generic single word search terms will increase the most, which leads onto the second big implication for advertisers.

2. Adwords campaign structure should be reviewed if there is a disproportionate increase in impressions for single word search terms, advertisers will need to evaluate if their campaign and adgroup structure is optimised. For example, having fairly generic keywords in the same adgroup as more specific long tail search terms could have the result of blowing the budget on less qualified, lower yield traffic. Time will tell, but Zoocha would advise setting up completely new campaigns for very generic, single word terms, so that you can control the budget separately from the more profitable, long tail terms. It will be a learning process, but that is nothing new in the digital environment.

Comedy Clubs

2010-06-16T01:40:00.004+01:00

New video from highlight comedy clubs:

Highlight Comedy - Live Stand Up from Fresh Cut on Vimeo.

Unique opportunities to join a fast growing, dynamic digital agency

2010-05-30T10:57:00.000+01:00

Account Manager – Zoocha
£Competitive + Bonus + Performance related incentives, Excellent career progression and Training
Based in Hertford

Are you a talented and ambition Account Manager with either experience or a genuine interest within Digital Media or Social media? If so this could be for you..

Zoocha are a new and innovative digital and social media marketing agency who are looking for an Account Manager to help grow the business. Reporting directly into the board of directors, this is an amazing opportunity to carve a career in a high growth, dynamic business.

As an Account Manager, you will be responsible managing a portfolio of client accounts, to build strong working relationships and to introduce new and creative ideas to maximise revenue.

You will be working with SME’s through to large corporate organisations both over the phone and face to face (ongoing training will be provided) so you’ll need the ability to develop strong relationships and the creativity to uncover new opportunities.

Your responsibilities will include:

- Tracking and reporting on clients PPC (pay per click) and SEO (search engine optimisation) campaigns.

- Planning, implementing, executing and analysing PPC campaigns across a variety of platforms.

- Understanding and managing on and offsite SEO techniques.

- Attending industry events and networking events in order to build the company reputation and brand awareness.

- Creating presentations and proposals and deliver effectively to clients.

- Monitoring and working to client budgets.

- There may be an element of new business development; however the main purpose of this position is account management.

This is an excellent opportunity for a someone passionate about Digital Media/Social Media, with Account Management experience or potential to quickly develop a key role within the company. Full training will be provided however you must have some experience of managing PPC campaigns or SEO knowledge. A Google AdWord Qualification would ideal.

Mobile Blogging from here.

Zoocha digital marketing

Customer Experience & Consumer Engagement

2010-05-14T00:53:00.001+01:00

(from my blog @ zoocha.com)

Customer experience tends to focus on functional aspects of service deliver; ease of use, accessibility, speed and convenience. For consumer goods brands, product quality is central to the customer experience.

Online, the rules are the same, though the nature of the consumer interface makes consumers less tolerant of failure. Why battle against a slow or poorly designed website, when there are countless other websites just a ‘google’ away?

If your content, product or service delivery is infallible, providing exceptional customer experience 100% of the time, the knock on benefit of consumer engagement is invaluable. Trust and loyalty are difficult to build but can be destroyed easily (Toyota?).

Whether you are confident in your service, or aspiring to better, it pays to be pro-active about customer experience and consumer engagement.

Election Selection Direction

2010-05-07T12:57:00.003+01:00

Having stayed up all night waiting for that decisive moment in the election (to no avail) I am now in despair at the lack of imagination about how to solve the problem.

The key challenges are:

The most popular party was the Conservatives with over 10 million votes, but they are unable to form a government until Labour 'give up'
They could solve this with a Lib Dem deal but the Tory party don't want to side with Lib Dems (as they are wedded to first past the post election system)
Labour want to side with the Lib Dems to retain power, but the Lib Dems don't want to side with them because after a bad night at the polls, the last thing they want to do is make themselves look like opportunists with no regard for democracy
The country is in a fragile state economically and could do with our leaders focused on that, rather than on 'who gets what by siding with who'!

So, Strat Nav offers a radical new solution...

The Tory/ Labour Coalition:

This strategy does pretty much what it says on the tin, with the following ingredients:

1) David Cameron becomes Prime Minister (with over 10m votes, he deserves it the most)

2) Gordon Brown heads a temporarily expanded cross party 'Treasury Team' where Alistair Darling remains Chancellor, supported by George Osbourne and Vince Cable. They have a specific set of objectives - deficit reduction and global financial regulation. Assuming GB is not over the moon with this, he should be rewarded for such a selfless act with a lifetime peerage, not to mention the respect of the nation!

3) Torys get education (sorry Ed), defence and benefits strategy, Labour get health, immigration and law and order (contrary to the election sound bites, their record not all that bad in these areas). The rest can be divided up as appropriate.

4) Schedule another election for 2 years time, with the option to defer to a full term if agreed by all parties.

The reason this sort of solution is not generally considered viable is because we assume that politicians can't be trusted to be grown up and pragmatic about it. Well, in a time of real economic sensitivity, surely it is appropriate to expect our leaders to put the country before party dogma and ego and just get on with their job!

Thoughts?

Cracking new digital agency in Hertfordshire

2009-12-07T22:43:00.002Z

Zoocha is a new digital creative agency that has launched in Hertfordshire. A collaboration between a small band of ex Tesco.com'ers, Zoocha will specialise in inspiring web design, technical wizardry and innovative digital marketing.

For more info, visit zoocha.com or email will@zoocha.com

Mobile Blogging

2009-10-31T23:39:00.000Z

If feels appropriate that the first time I post a blog using my iPhone, it should be about mobile blogging!

It seems that every year since 2005 has been predicted to be "the year of mobile" in the world of digital marketing, but the reality has never matched the hype. This year, for the first time, it may just have come true.

But even with the wide range of mobile computing devises entering the Market on the coat tails of the iPhone, it is hard for digital marketing to identify the best channels to exploit it.

"Apps" are obvious and interesting new opportunities for digital marketing, but unless they are relevant and add value to the user, they can end up being misguided!

My advice is to follow the consumer and stick to what works. Twitterific and iblogger make it easy to social network and publish on the go - these channels are still so new that their direction and development could easily be influenced by the mobile interface, so watch this space!

For advice on mobile marketing, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk.

A Road Map for Business

2009-10-14T22:38:00.001+01:00

Strategy Navigation is a concept as well as a business service. It was created by Will Huggins to help businesses build their strategic road maps. Focused on category management principles Strat Nav is a great resource for any consumer orientated business.

The Concept:
All businesses need the help of external companies and resources. Sometimes this 'outsourcing' can be difficult to define, even harder to measure and not sustainable without further outsourcing. Strategy Navigation is the process of defining your goals and agreeing the road map. Knowing your destination is critical to any journey - business strategy is no exception. Then, mapping out the best route for your business is the next step. With a clear road map, you will be able to ensure your business is equipped with the right resources to complete the journey!

The Service:
We specialise in consumer focused businesses, providing expertise in the following areas:
Category Management
e-Commerce
New Media and Online Marketing
Innovation and Product Development
Negotiation Training and Commercial Coaching
Consumer Research and Insight

We have close links with several partner companies and businesses allowing me to pull in additional expertise and resource in these areas as well as:
Brand Marketing
Design
Web Design and Build
Video Content Production
Search Engine Optimisation
Analytics and Reporting

Strategy Navigation is a cost effective way to step change your business. Start the journey!

Just because I love it and stubbled across it on You Tube...

2009-09-24T21:19:00.000+01:00

Marketing a Multi Channel Proposition

2009-08-11T21:58:00.004+01:00

Traditional 'bricks and mortar' retailers are increasingly waking up to the probability that their future growth (and ultimately survival) depends on developing a multi-channel strategy to reach a broader, more demanding customer base.

Few are adept at this, due to limitations in technology, skills or cultural acceptance. This is perhaps understandable as the sophistication of the consumer has increased faster than legacy systems could evolve and adapt.

This lag should have given retail marketers a chance to advance beyond the limitations of their operational capability and experiment with multi channel marketing strategies. Sadly, this appears not to be the case. There is precious little evidence that marketers are leading the way when it comes to understanding consumer interaction across different media channels to drive behaviour across several retail channels.

The image above is taken from a McKinsey paper which describes the first step to developing a multi channel marketing strategy as the need to "decide on multi channel vs. multiple channel strategy".

This is a distinction that is lost on many marketers. A successful multi channel retail operation is characterised by a seamless interaction between the different channels e.g. order on line, collect in store, or the ability to return online ordered/ home delivered goods to your nearest outlet.

Multi channel marketing must be more than just 'marketing through multiple channels'. Like the operational delivery of the multi channel proposition, it needs to be seamless to the consumer, while exploiting the core strength of each media channel. This requires a fresh approach from marketing departments, to embrace new ways of communicating brand messages with the goal of developing a multi channel customer base.

For more information about how Strat Nav can help you develop multi channel marketing solutions, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk.

Building Commercial Excellence

2009-05-30T07:22:00.003+01:00

The recession we are in has served to reinforce a fact that many businesses had forgotten over the last 10 years - building and maintaining a competitive advantage is critical to success.

I found a great article on the IGD website titled: WHAT MAKES A BEST IN CLASS SUPPLIER WHEN TRADING IS TOUGH?

The capability model, pictured right, is a good illustration of the kind of balanced score card approach that is key to managing strong retailer relationships. However, what this chart fails to do is highlight any sort of order or importance to each section. In order to evaluate this, it useful to think about where your business can achieve a competitive advantage. As a former retail buyer, I would always look to 'structure and people', 'customer (commercial) management' and 'category leadership'. That is not to say that the other areas are not worthy of excellence - they are, but at the highest levels, you come to expect that these things are core competencies. People, commercial and category excellence is quite often a rare gen in a buyers supply base and therefore one that really sets a supplier apart from its competitors.

A World Class Team:
Finding, attracting and retaining good people is a challenge for any business, so when you find a supplier who's people convey genuine loyalty and passion for the business, you know you have something special. It comes as no surprise to find that they are also the suppliers that have the best people. Training and development is one important element of generating this high performance, loyal culture. Everyone needs help to be the best that they can - watching the PGA golf recently I was reminded that all the top golfers have coaches. This is not so they can learn from someone better, but so they can develop their technique, gain feedback and share ideas - this is an essential element in their dedication to be the very best.

Commercial Excellence:
There is no doubt that in the world of retail supply, commercial managers are at the coal face. This makes the choice of personnel for this position, of utmost importance. There are certain values that are obvious; numeracy, commercial instinct, relationship management etc. There are also those things that really set good commercial managers apart from the rest. Honesty, tenacity and 'emotional intelligence' are 3 things that can elevate a commercial manager to excellence. Honesty seems like it is so obvious that it should not be mentioned, but is not as universally applied as you would hope. Tenacity and emotional intelligence are rarely found in the same body, but when they are it is a killer combination. Going after the deal hard is clearly important, but great commercial managers read their buyer - they know how far to push, when to back off, when to act offended and when to brush it off. This is world class negotiation and is a great competitive advantage to have.

Category Leadership:
This is particularly important, often as a foil to the other elements of the capability shield. You expect and need your finance and operations managers to be ruthless in their pursuit of cost saving and efficiency, so you need someone who can really champion a the consumer. A business that is not ruthlessly efficient will die quickly - a business that is not equally consumer focused will die slowly!

Strategy Navigation has devised a series of training programs to facilitate the drive for competitive advantage.

Commercial Excellence
Category Management
Leadership and Influencing
Managing Change

These programs can be tailored to your specific business needs. To arrange a meeting, please contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk

Category Management In Convenience Retailing

2009-05-12T12:14:00.005+01:00

According to the IGD's latest research, the convenience market has grown by 6.1% in the last 12 months to just under £30bn. This rate of growth outstrips the total grocery market which IGD estimates has grown by 5.1% - an astonishing performance when you consider the number of convenience outlets has declined by 1.6% in the same period.

IGD are right to point out that drivers of this growth include improvements to the store formats, as well as better range propositions that can more adequately meet the needs of the convenience shopper missions. But what does this mean?

To start with, consolidation in the convenience market is leading to greater consistency of service and offer. Tesco, Sainsbury, Co-op and Musgrave have all focused on improving and growing their convenience estates. This is creating greater competition and raising the standards of range selection, availability and promotions.

This in turn is raising the bar among the symbol groups and unaffiliated independents. IGD value symbol group sales at over £10bn, growing at an incredible 7.7% per year. Whilst the independents are still growing in value terms (about 4%) the number of outlets is in decline, driven by recruitment of stores to the symbol groups.

All this has big implications for consumer goods brands and manufacturers. Category management in convenience retailing is not a simple extrapolation from mainstream grocery strategy. It requires focus, expertise and innovation in order to be successful. It also requires shrewd negotiation! There is seldom enough room in a convenience store for the basics, let alone the choice of multiple brands in a single category. This gives the buyer greater leverage and means the supplier must adopt a cohesive category approach to strengthen their position.

To construct a category strategy for the convenience sector, the following framework can be useful:

Space and Range:
This is obviously the fundamental limiting factor in convenience formats. Think about substitutability between categories e.g. frozen pizza vs chilled pizza - there may be trade off's without compromising customer choice.

Also, look for incremental space opportunities e.g. clip strips, stacks and off fixture displays. The shopping is usually into basket rather than trolley so clear aisle policies should be challenges.

Shopper Missions:
Think about who is shopping the category and why. Convenience stores are usually either distress or top up shopping occasions. How can you cater for this? What is the local competition e.g. supermarket, butcher etc?

Signage and POS:
Despite being small, with few products, convenience stores are often harder to shop than supermarkets. Make sure your product/ category stands out to the customers and that the use of signage is impactful.

Seasonality and Promotions:
The 'distress' shopping missions that are characteristic of the format, provide a great opportunity to trade seasonal events and use promotions tactically to draw people into the category.

For help with category management strategy and training, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk

Sainsbury e-mail Fiasco

2009-04-27T10:01:00.007+01:00

The first lesson you learn as a retail buyer is "never commit anything to e-mail that you would not commit to paper". The fact is, e-mails are much more dangerous. A letter can be lost and it's authenticity questioned. An e-mail creates a digital foot print that provides cast iron evidence of its origins and existence.

You have to feel sorry for the poor Sainsbury buyer who is reported to have pre-empted the budget by e-mailing beer and cider suppliers, demanding a "mitigation plan" for dealing with duty increases (reported in The Telegraph, 27th April 2009 edition). Whilst an e-mail allegedly implying the threat of delist will have scared and alienated suppliers, it is worth spending a moment looking at it from the buyers perspective. They are under enormous pressure to achieve stretching targets in a climate where consumers are spending less, the governement is taking more, suppliers are passing on higher costs and competitors are lowering prices. There will be no shortage of buyers losing sleep at the moment, not least the beers, wines and spirits (BWS) buyers.

They will have been instructed by their managers to 'come up with a plan' to mitigate the impact of the budget on their gross margins. They may even have been instructed to 'apply reasonable pressure on suppliers' to help find the solution. Either way, is it unreasonable to expect the first place they look for solutions to be their supply base?

I am certainly not saying that their alleged language or tactics are 'reasonable'. They are heavy handed, clumsy and lack any implication of joint responsibility. However, suppliers that are not prepared for such challenges are deluding themselves and as a consequence, reducing their leverage in negotiations. BWS suppliers are the industry experts - they have lived through many budgets and negotiated with many buyers. They should be putting that experience to good use by leading the budget response with their retail customers.

Be pro-active - map out your proposed solutions to duty increases (or any other industry problem) and present them to your retail buyer. If it is a category problem, it is a joint responsibility to find the solution.
Engage your category managers - they will be the ones who can widen the scope for potential solutions, rather than making a purely financial issue.
Engage the buying team - they are human beings with a difficult job. When presented with the option of having a tough conversation or leaking an e-mail to the press, which do you think builds the most trust?
Don't forget the balance of power - it is all well and good to threaten reactive delist. What are the consumer/ category implications? What will it mean for the retailers market share or overall margin mix? A sophisticated supplier with a category approach will find the balance of power much more in their favour than a reactive sales led business!

For business support on category management, commercial strategy and negotiation, please contact Will Huggins, will@strategynavigation.co.uk.

Strat Nav Teams Up with ICYGEN to Reinvent the Internet

2009-04-27T09:25:00.002+01:00

The business consultancy, Strategy Navigation, has teamed up with ICYGEN, the international interactive agency, to offer complete web and online marketing solutions in the UK and Spain.

“I am delighted to form an alliance with ICYGEN” says Strat Nav founder Will Huggins. “They are an incredible company combining technical, creative and interactive campaign expertise that has already made them number 1 in Eastern Europe. Matching this heritage with Strat Nav’s expertise in the UK and Spanish market is a recipe for success.”

“We have been looking for a partner in the UK with the right values for some time” explains Petko Ivanov, Business Development Manager for ICYGEN. “Our creativity is powered by an amazing team, so choosing a partner has to be a careful process. Strat Nav brings the same commitment to value for money, reliability and integrity that have made ICYGEN industry leaders. This partnership is a very exciting development”.

As if a testament to the power of the internet, ICYGEN found Strat Nav through LinkedIn, the professional networking portal.

For more information about ICYGEN & Strat Nav services, please contact Will Huggins (will@strategynavigation.co.uk).

About Strategy Navigation:
Strategy Navigation is a concept as well as a business service. Founded in 2009, Strat Nav provides strategic consultancy in two key areas:
Digital Strategy: e-commerce, digital media and online advertising
Category Management: Strategies for consumer brands and retailers to drive growth though category development
With clients in the UK and Spain, Strat Nav is establishing itself as a trusted resource for business.

About ICYGEN:
ICYGEN is an international interactive agency actively operating in the US and European markets, providing premium corporate websites and Internet marketing solutions.
Number 1 web agency in Eastern Europe
6 offices throughout the world
20+ Fortune 100 clients
More than 1,000 completed projects
Creative and production team of over 80 highly qualified professionals

Multi-Channel Retailing and Category Management

2009-04-20T09:30:00.003+01:00

The evolution and development of multi-channel retailing continues to create new opportunities for consumer brands. In order to unlock these opportunities, category managers must be able to pull insight from each channel and map the category dynamics. With e-commerce being one of the fastest growing routes to market, these insights are on one hand becoming more tangible - on the other hand, they are posing new questions!

The tangible insights can be drawn from the depth and precision of shopper behaviour data that can be accessed when people shop online. Mysupermarket.co.uk is an incredible, but largely unknown resource for FMCG category managers. It pulls product information from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury and Ocado, allowing consumers to do their grocery shopping whilst comparing the prices in each retailer. It is more than just a comparison site as the consumer can do their entire shop within mysupermarket, compare the total cost before choosing which retailer to buy from. With over 50,000 consumers per month, it provides a credible sample size to start looking at product/ brand switching data, cross-shopping between categories and all the conventional category KPI's like average weight of purchase etc.

This is not to say that tangible insights into multi-channel can't be derived from "offline" sources. For example, when looking at ranging in convenience store formats, it is useful to look at till roll data from big stores, where the transaction size is low. This can provide insight into what people buy when they are on a specific shopping mission, but have the whole category range to choose from.

All these insights will help build a more comprehensive map of the category and inform ranging and merchandising decisions through each channel.

So what of the difficult new questions? These revolve around the interaction between channels. It is commonly recognised that 'multi channel consumers' are more loyal and spend more than single channel stalwarts. Much of the data mentioned above can confirm this and help to cement this loyalty. But what about cross channel advertising? How much does online drive offline and vice verse? In the US, it is now thought that over 16% of ALL consumer purchases are researched online first. This is an astounding amount of consumer spend and suggests the Internet is one of the most important advertising media's. But it is very difficult to quantify in reality, leading to confusion among advertisers.

One way to over-come this is to make online advertising more response based e.g. printable coupons that can be redeemed in store. Tesco are now trialling their club card statement via e-mail. If successful, this could present a whole new marketing channel for brands to reach their consumers and measure the impact - advertise and incentive online, make the sale offline.

To build your multi-channel category strategy or for information about Mysupermarket data, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk

Asda's People Make the Difference

2009-04-14T09:38:00.005+01:00

Asda have always been good at making their staff feel engaged in the business and motivating them to do their very best for customers. It is this that will really make the difference in terms of loyalty as the price war between supermarkets intensifies even more!

They have even started to get their staff involved in the adverts, not by making them do really embarrassing things (remember Halifax???) but by showcasing them at work. This is a great tactic on several levels:
1) it is cheap - no celebrity fees to pay!
2) it personalises the brand
3) it motivates staff
4) with over 170,000 employees, who all have family and friends, it creates a viral marketing opportunity

It is this last point that Asda appear to have neglected - The above You Tube video clip is from a You Tube group not set up by Asda. Whilst this demonstrates a small viral success in itself, it is by no means optimising the opportunity. Asda could be developing an whole series of video clips showing out-takes, auditions and other funny moments from the making of the ads. This would further enhance the personal feel to the ads and build even greater consumer appeal, not to mention a very cheap advertising strategy.

For help with video content, online advertising and retail strategy, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk

Stimulating Consumer Demand

2009-04-06T00:10:00.001+01:00

(Image: Economist, April 4th to 10th 2009)
As the recession really takes grip, we will see the drop in consumer demand continue unabated. There are several obvious reasons for this, not least; lower disposable incomes, increased concern about future, desire to consume less for environmental reasons...

The consumer demand landscape is, however, more complex than that. There are still opportunities to drive consumer demand using core category management principles from the Strat Nav "tool kit".

Focus on consumer 'need states' and usage occasions. There are a number of ways to do this and the best approach will vary between category. A good illustration is in the yoghurt's category. There are a number of need states (e.g. health, diet, indulgence etc) and usage occasions (breakfast, lunch box, dessert etc) to exploit. By focusing on these purchase and usage drivers, we can quickly find barriers to increasing demand. An average family, with 2 children may consume: 1 yoghurt for breakfast, 2 yoghurt's in the children's lunch boxes, 4 yoghurt's after dinner. This adds up to 7 yoghurt's per weekday (35 yoghurt's per week, excl weekends). Most families with find two problems keeping up with this level of demand:
a) the number purchased in one shopping trip
b) in home availability

With problem 'a)', solutions can be found in packaging, promotion, format planning and POS. For example, Grocery Home Shopping is the perfect format to shop large quantities of each item, as someone else has to do the hard work. The barrier then becomes problem 'b)' i.e. there are only so many yoghurts that will fit in the fridge at one time. Again, Grocery Home Shopping is an answer, because it could allow multiple deliveries per week.

In order to start influencing these levers and driving demand up, a category approach needs to be adopted. Promotions can be used either at a product level (multi buys are the obvious weight of purchase driving mechanic) or at a format level (free delivery will encourage people to take several, smaller shopping deliveries, relieving pressure on in home availability).

Packaging is another area that can have a dramatic impact on consumer demand e.g. fresh guacamole in Tesco, has no replaceable lid. As the item is particularly short on code life, it needs eating quickly, pushing the consumer towards a smaller pack size. Were there a replaceable lid on the bigger pack size, the consumer is encouraged to trade up.

To develop your category approach and drive consumer demand, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk

Strat Nav launched to help businesses find their way!

2009-04-05T23:56:00.006+01:00

The advent of Satellite Navigation transformed the way we get from A to B. Now there is something to make sure businesses don't take the wrong turn! Strategy Navigation (Strat Nav) is a brand new business consultancy designed to help companies large and small build a road map for their future.

The business has been started by Will Huggins, who gained his business credential over 10 years, much of which spent at Tesco HQ. The business will focus on helping manufacturers and suppliers develop their products and categories and improve their relationships with the major retailers. Another important arm of the business is to help clients optimize their presence on the internet.

"Many businesses find themselves in a rut in terms of strategy" say founder Will Huggins. "Developing the categories in which they operate and reaching their consumers over the internet seem either too difficult or too expensive. In fact, the opposite is true. The easiest and least expensive route to success is to focus on your consumer and communicate with them online. In times of recession these channels provide the highest impact at lowest cost"

In order to provide a full range of services to clients, Strat Nav has teamed up with selected industry experts in commercial training, online marketing and interactive media. With these partnership, Strat Nav aims to help more business find the right road to profitability!

For more information contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk

Social Networking - a reality for your business!

2009-03-30T08:18:00.003+01:00

Social networking (and so called 'social media') is an example of evolution in human behaviour that has led to a revolution in marketing opportunity. Many businesses have not yet modified their thinking to be able to exploit this - but they will soon be forced to by competitive pressure!

The evolution in human behaviour:
Social media has not precipitated a radical shift in what we do as humans, it has simply facilitated an evolution of our behaviour. Look at most blogs, forums, chat rooms, social networks and you will find people doing what people have always done; chatting, publishing things they know about, asking questions, getting in touch, having a laugh, meeting new people, sharing experiences, learning about things... and of course, twittering!

There is nothing new about this. It is normal human behaviour. What is new, is the ease and speed at which it can all happen. They have not always been able to publish what they know about quite so easily, but think about 'letter to the editor' and personal announcements in local press. These are driven by the same human impulses that drive blogging and twittering? It is just so much easier now, so even more people do it.

The most interesting trend is the digitization of word of mouth. Word of mouth has long been a subject of great interest for marketing and brand professionals. I wonder how many management hours went into trying to figure out a way to management and direct word of mouth to deliver a measurable impact on sales or market share? Remember the marketing agency that employed actors to stand in bars and sit in trains talking about certain brands?

The revolution in marketing opportunity:
Social media has provided a place for 'word of mouth' to flourish - and because it is digital, it can be found, aggregated, monitored, measured and in theory, managed. A company that is doing nothing else with social media should at least be setting up RSS feeds to monitor the net for mentions of their brand or category 'keywords'. If nothing else, this will give you free consumer insight - it will probably do more than that and actually drive change through your business.

Then the possibilities get exciting. What are they saying, where are they saying it and who is doing most of the talking? Get some of the answers to these questions and you can now market directly to your most receptive audience - remember the Internet is narrow cast, not broadcast!

The best way to illustrate this is to imagine a bus stop poster that only displays your advert to people at the bus stop that are talking about your brand or category... and therefore you only pay for that level of distribution! Maximum impact, minimum cost!

In summary, social networking is here to stay - I can say that confidently because it was always here!

For help developing your social media strategies, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk.

Own Label Range Strategies

2009-03-23T17:10:00.005Z

There is a great deal of activity among European retailers to develop their own label product ranges as a response to the declining consumer spending power. In the UK, Tesco has launched a range of 'tertiary' brands to compete more effectively against the discount retailers and provide an alternative purchase choice for consumers looking to trade down from their preferred brand. Data from mysupermarket.co.uk suggests this is working, with the majority of steal coming from brands rather than the own label products.

In Spain, Mercadona, an excellent grocery retailer from Valencia, has started to de-list major brands to give more space to its successful own label offering. It is using the downturn to pursue a strategy that in any other economic climate, would be considered too risky - and the brands must be worried!

The implications for brands and manufacturers are clear:

Ensure you can define your value in the category. If you are a brand, now is the time to beef up your category development credentials. How are you growing the category, increasing demand, driving weight of purchase etc?
Broaden your portfolio. Do your brands appeal to a price conscious consumer? If not, what are the alternatives in the category? How can you defend against them? Options could be to launch a lower end brand offer, or develop a marketable 'recession buster' promotions plan.
Embrace own label. If you manufacture own label, focus category management resource on this to assist the retailers range planning. If you don't supply own label, are there tertiary brands you could develop exclusive to a target retailer. This could help them get 'own label' equivalent products on the shelves quickly!
Ensure everyone in your organisation has a 'category management tool box'. What can each person/ department do to improve develop the category you operate in? Do they have the skills and knowledge to make the right decisions e.g. pack sizes, promotions, packaging design, marketing etc. It is every ones responsibility.

These are tough times for retailers and their suppliers. Those who strengthen their relationships with each other through good category management and joint business plans, will emerge stronger at the end of the recession.

For help and advice on CATEGORY DEVELOPMENT or to help you build your CATEGORY MANAGEMENT TOOLBOX, contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk.

Online Video Content - Finding the right Path

2009-03-18T17:27:00.004Z

Video content has been 'hyped up' for years now. You Tube made it accessible to a mass audience, but also served to create a very specific perception of online video content. On the positive side, it showed the power of viral marketing at its very best - who has not received a You Tube link from a friend via e-mail?!?! Unfortunately it also created a set of negative perceptions; a dumping ground for masses of low quality, user generated, video footage, most of which was not interesting or enjoyable to watch and no advertiser would wish to be associated. This has become a dangerous mix for online video business cases i.e. high levels of traffic (and therefore bandwidth and cost), but limited advertising/ commercial opportunity. You Tube, Daily Motion and all the other similar businesses that rushed to mark their territory in online video are learning a tough lesson.

But this does not mean that we should right off video content altogether! There are some great opportunities as the consumer audience increasingly looks for 'on demand content' served as video.

Targeted and relevant. Like any other content, particularly on the Internet, video content should be highly relevant to a specific target audience. This obviously ensures good SEO for the content, but also means you get the most value from your bandwidth. Too many people confuse online video content with broadcast TV (because it is what they are used too!). To ignore the fact that online video is a targeted 'narrow cast' media is to ignore all its benefits.
Keep it short. Again, too many people fall into the trap of the assumption "what worked on TV will work online". Whilst the audience may be the same, the media certainly is not. It needs to be consumed on small screen (8") and even on mobile devices like the i-phone. 3 minutes is my rule of thumb.
Advertising needs to reflect the content. This is important in terms of relevance and in terms of length. I once saw a 50 second Special K add pre-rolled onto a Pearl Jam video. Although I should probably lose some weight, I am guessing those advertising $$$ were pretty much wasted! Also, it really annoyed me because it was so long. Again, my rule of thumb would be 15 seconds for pre-roll ads (IAB guidelines are pretty comprehensive).
Make it high quality. Because it is online does not mean it can be low budget! Why would someone used to TV quality programming all of a sudden accept a lower quality because they are accessing it through a different media? It is worth investing time in the creative concept and money in the production. My advice would be to budget circa £1k per fully edited minute of content. Remember point 1. It should be targeted so 1 minute of edited programming should carry a high advertising value at a low bandwidth cost! The money is made in value, not volume!
Make it interactive. Microsoft are already working on a way for video content to be used by search engines instead of typed keywords. Your video content may not be the end point of the consumers journey so why not influence what there next click is by serving with the content, in the content. If the program is about home improvement, allow them to click a specific points to relevant products, websites or content. This is not difficult and add little more cost to the production and serving of the content.

These guidelines seem simple enough but just look on line at the video content and see for yourself. Everyone has already made the basic mistakes. Now you can learn from them!

Contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk to start your journey.

The Interactive Marketing Road Map

2009-03-05T23:22:00.004Z

Interactive marketing is any media in which the audience participates actively with the content. To explain this properly, it is useful to contrast with non participative media - the biggest of which (at least in terms of advertising spend) is television. TV is digested passively, making it harder to target and engage an audience - and harder still to measure any engagement. The audience can do nothing with the content except digest it and hopefully recall it at a later date when a purchase/ consumption occassion arises.

Interactive marketing on the other hand should attempt to elicit a direct response from the audience and even aspire to engage the audience in the development of the content. Most of the interactive media channels that excite marketing managers these days are digital, however there are a couple of 'tried and tested' offline channels worth noting. Sampling, for example, is a classic way of engaging a targeted audience to participate in the product being advertised and thus assume a more intimate relationship with the brand before a purchase is even considered. It is however an expensive way to engage an audience, as it requires a physical route to the target group (e.g. through the post) and the contact details of that target group must be obtained e.g. list purchase.

By far the most cost effective, interactive marketing channels emerging are digital. These include all forms of web advertising - even the simplest forms like good adsense! There are a number of reasons why these channels are emerging and why I believe they will dominate the advertising landscape within 5 years:

Targeting. If you take google adsense as an example, this provides any advertiser with a route to the most relevant websites in their specific market. Equally, it enables media owners to serve highly relevant ads against their content, enhancing the consumer experience. This is a classic 'win win' model where both the advertiser and media owner are seeking the same goal - high levels of audience interaction. The media owner benefits because high levels of interaction earn more revenue and increase the yield of the media. The advertiser wins because the audience are engaging with their brand in a pro-active and measurable way.
Audience Sophistication. There is a whole generation emerging, many already in adulthood, who do not know a world without digital media. A great illustration of this was brought to life by Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 conference in April 2008. He descibed the experience of a friend who had been watching a DVD with his four year old daughter. Half way through, she jumped off the sofa and dived behind the TV. He thought this to be a cute moment of an inquisitive child looking for the 'people in the TV'. He asked what she was doing, only to be given the answer "looking for the mouse". For a new generation, interactive media is not just familiar and safe, but necessary for a rewarding experience. In other words, if it is not interactive, it's broken!
Advertiser Sophistication. For most of the recent history, TV has commanded the single largest portion of advertiser spend. This is for a couple of reasons. The first is scale - consumption has been (and continues to be) huge. Average TV viewing hours per day is unhealthily high. The second reason is that it is a big budget media and has always required sign off by the senior members of an organisation. They have historically been (and many continue to be) from a generation before the internet. But in not too many years, the little girl who looked for the mouse behind the TV in order to participate in what she saw, will be in the work force, making business decisions. Why would TV be good enough for her then, when it wasn´t at the age of 4?
Audience Behaviour. This is the ultimate driver of any market change. People will watch less TV (in the currently accepted way) and will increasing contribute to the programming. This could be in direct content contribution, or through 'on demand' decisions about what to watch, when. All of this change will be easily measurable and therefore present a low risk to advertisers.

It is startlingly easy to find examples of advertisers and media owners who have not yet realised that digital, interactive media is becoming a reality for millions of consumers. Now is the time for them to catch up with the trend and develop a road map to become a truely interactive and engaging proposition.

Contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk to start your journey.

Strat Nav launches Category Management Training Programme

2009-03-02T12:39:00.006Z

PRESS RELEASE:
The business consultancy, Strategy Navigation, is launching a training programme specifically designed for consumer goods companies that want to develop a category management culture in their organisation.

“Many consumer orientated businesses are still allowing brand, operations or sales to guide their strategic direction” says Strat Nav founder and former Tesco Buyer, Will Huggins. “Increasingly, they are realising that the most successful route to long term growth is through the adoption of a category led strategy.”

This approach is nothing new to the global brand owners, who have achieved leading positions in multiple geographical markets by employing category management principles and establishing a consumer focused culture. Also, their scale means they can sustain a team of category management experts to lead their thinking.

“For smaller businesses, particularly producers of retailer branded products, adopting a category led strategy can be difficult. They will often find themselves with a high proportion of turnover from just one or two retailer customers, fostering a sales led culture. The Strat Nav Category Management Programme is specifically designed to develop category understanding and establish a road map for a category led strategy.”

Tailored to each business function from sales to operations, the programme establishes the language and principles of category management, equipping everyone in the organisation with a category management ‘tool box’.

“Category management should not just be the responsibility of a designated team of category experts - each and every member of the business should know what role they play in developing their category.”

The training programme has been developed to meet the high demand for category management skills, especially among food and drink manufacturers.

“There is a real need for these skills in the industry” explains Will Huggins. “The Category Management Training Programme could easily become Strat Nav’s flagship product”

For more information about this programme or any other Strategy Navigation service, please contact Will Huggins (will@strategynavigation.co.uk).

The Category Management Road Map

Category Management is a term used regularly in consumer focused industries like retail and FMCG, but often with a wide variety of meanings. Some businesses use it as a label for senior commercial or account management, others to describe a marketing role that sits between trade and brand marketing.

Most of the time it quite rightly resides in the commercial function. This is important because more than any other function in the business, category management should set the strategy and be financially accountable. But knowing where the function sits is not particularly helpful in resourcing it. Category Managers bring a specific set of skills, experience and 'thought leadership' to the commercial team and this can at times cause conflict. However, a successful category manager will be able to step change your consumer propositions and equip the commercial team to maximise returns.

The Road Map:

Knowing your market. This is not as straightforward as it sounds and requires several points of reference. First, you need to know the market size and dynamics e.g. total value of the market, growth trends, competitor landscape, routes to market and future forecasts.
Knowing your consumer. This is even harder and requires an insightful balance of quantitative and qualitative research. These insights should always link back to broader consumer trends to context the research. Think in terms of demand - what are the consumer needs, how is demand in the category generated from consumer usage. What are the levers to increase demand i.e. weight of purchase, frequency of purchase, size of audience (consumer penetration).
Knowing your place. What is your market position, who is market leader, what do they do etc. Also, you need to define your 'consumer positioning'. Be honest about the reality and begin to define the aspiration.
Knowing your destination. Steps 1 to 3 will have build a clear vision of your business and where you want to get to. You will have quantified the financial benefits and set targets behind delivery of the category position you aspire to.
Category Development Road Map. Bring your vision back into the context of the total category. How will achieving your vision help to grow the category and drive consumer demand? How will it impact on your routes to market?
Prioritise. Don't try to do everything. Focus on the biggest prize and execute it brilliantly with the resource available.
Communicate. Category Management touches every part of a consumer focused business. Make sure everyone knows the road map and understands their role in making it happen.

My experience confims that although this reads like common sense, few businesses do this well - in fact many businesses don't do this at all! This is understandable when you realise that category management is still not properly understood in a lot of businesses or the term is incorrectly used to describe an account manager or buying manager.

A simple tool box and road map can help every business "think category" and improve their returns!

Contact will@strategynavigation.co.uk