Steve Jobs (Pic: AP)

The recent sad death of Steve Jobs robbed the world of an amazing man, regardless of whether one loves the iPhone, the iPad or the Mac.

The question now is how Apple will survive his loss.

Obviously, the company has been run – and run well – during his absences but it will be interesting to see how it performs in five, ten years time without its visionary leader.

During that time the current ‘news kids on the block’ will have matured and one may be the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

At the moment Apple products are flavour of the month but the test will come with the next new product launch.

But maybe customers will be kind as many seem to have a personal bond with the Apple brand. As one of the tributes on the RememberingSteve page on the Apple website said: 

“I fell in love with my first MAC in 1987, and have been in love with Apple ever since. Steve, your vision of what these products could do enabled me and millions of others to express our creativity in ways we once thought unimaginable. I can think of no greater gift to humanity than helping us all tap into our limitless potential to make art. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Sandy”

Few technology products have inspired so much love so maybe Steve’s real legacy will be that the Apple dream will live on into the future.

Time will tell!

The current Co-operative television advert features a husband appealing to his wife for relaxing Saturdays rather than the usual trip to the supermarket that involves waiting in queues etc. He ends with the exhortation to shop less and to shop for what you need, when you need it.

This system is, of course, how our continental cousins have shopped for centuries – shopping daily for fresh food to be cooked and eaten that day.

While even the gourmet French now shop at giant hypermarkets and their small specialist retailers may be struggling, they still buy their baguettes fresh every day and manage to enjoy ‘le weekend’.

The Co-op’s new multi-million pound advertising campaign was launched on January 3^rd 2011 and highlights all those activities that are more exciting the weekly shop.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/mzjhtb3TgBo

Created by advertising consultancy TBWA Manchester, the adverts encourage customers to spend more time with their loved ones at the weekend having fun.

Sean Toal, Commercial Director at The Co-operative Food, is quoted in the Retail Gazette as saying “We know that people don’t want to waste precious personal time, and the new advertising campaign gives us a unique opportunity to encourage people to think about how they prioritise things and the way they shop.”

Clearly, these adverts play to the Co-op’s strengths – 4,000+ local stores – but may well have a resonance far beyond their original remit.

If consumer concerns over higher food and fuel costs – allied with environmental concerns over waste and carbon emissions – become more important than possible savings at Tesco, then we will see more consumers changing their purchasing habits – buying locally from shops and markets as the need arises.

So could we see the end of the dominance of the mighty out-of-town supermarket in the near future? Let’s hope so!

 It is not a difficult concept to understand. Basically it charts the profit from a retained customer over X years against the cost of acquiring a new one each year. Repeat business is much more profitable than new business.

 Harvard Business School Publishing has a model which shows the principle very simply.

 Clearly retaining customers should be at the heart of every business yet so many companies chase new ones at the expense of keeping existing ones happy. 

(For example, in the past financial institutions have been guilty of offering a lower mortgage rate or a higher savings rate to new customers only, leaving their loyal customers worse off.)

 Although this is changing it is clear that in some organisations the concept of CLV is not one embraced by everyone.

 In a recent ‘battle’ with Vodafone, when advised of the CLV of being a business contract customer for over 20 years, the Customer Services Adviser said ‘That’s nothing to do with me!”

 Retaining customers through excellent service should be every employee’s business – regardless of the department or division in which they work.

 Thought leader Seth Godin’s best-selling book ‘Purple Cow’ talked about creating remarkable products. He then turned his attention to poor customer service and cites ‘cell phone bills’ as one of the topics on which he gets much mail. What a surprise!

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/02/starting_over_w.html

In the age of wide choice and educated customers companies should be trying harder than ever to keep customers and profits!

Are you listening Vodafone?

Amazon's Kindle

Occasionally a product arrives that changes the marketplace for ever.

Arguably Apple’s iPhone has changed the mobile phone market while their iPad has ended the dominance of the netbook and laptop for working on the move. Certainly their iPod changed the music industry for ever.

Yet it is Amazon’s Kindle (ebook reader) that may prove to have the most far-reaching affects. It may herald the end of the printed book and traditional publishing.

 On 20 July 2010 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced that Kindle format sales were now greater than sales of hardback books.

He explained: ” While our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books– astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.”

The online bookseller put out a release full of intriguing facts. Nevertheless, the company still has not released straightforward figures about total Kindle sales or total eBooks sold. Among the other details, the company revealed they have sold three times as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 compared to the first half of 2009.

Amazon also shared this statistic for paid books: “Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.”

Already the dominance of Amazon has contributed to the disappearance of the traditional High Street bookshop, which is being driven out by a lethal combination of cheaper online prices, guaranteed next day delivery and endless choice. Not to mention ever-increasing shop rents and parking charges.

However, the final nail in the coffin of the small, friendly bookshop may prove to be the Kindle – the iPod of the book world? Now the UK version of the Kindle launches in August.

Even The Sun newspaper featured the news as a lead story yesterday - see http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gizmo/3075557/Amazon-launch-new-UK-Kindle-e-book-reader.html

Watch this space. Soon your favourite author’s new book may not be available at WH Smith – only as an ebook.

Amazon’s dominance continues.

The street was very crowded with shoppers, many of them tourists from France and Italy or from Eastern Europe, enjoying the reduction in sterling’s value.

Yet many of the lunchtime shoppers were clely locals who had ‘escaped’ from nearby offices to enjoy the early spring sunshine and to browse the rails.

What was interesting from a marketer’s perspective was what the shoppers were buying.

A quick review of the carrier bags that shoppers were carrying yesterday showed that the clear winners were Primark and Selfridges. Certainly both stores were very busy with queues at tills, particularly at the former.

The carriers that were glaringly absent were from the ‘middle market’ – Next, M&S, Bhs etc.

This was a physical demonstration of market positioning with consumers shopping at the top of the market and the bottom.

While these observations spring from two hours one lunchtime, it does show that is being reflected in market share and share prices – the middle market is finding the going tough.

Retailers in the middle ground need to create a reason why we should shop there. Differentiation is the key! Give us a reason to spend money with you!

Oxford St image courtesy of The Guardian

He was later quoted as saying ” We took early action in 2008 to deal with the increasingly tough trading environment and have set our business ready to manage continuing difficult market conditions in 2009. We have already taken decisive action, and stand ready to take further steps if necessary.” (Source www.diyweek.net)

However, on the radio he added that high staff turnover was a feature of their business and appeared to view it favourably as a way of managing staff costs.

It made me think. Usually businesses want to keep their staff since recuiting and training new employees is costly in both temporal and financial resources.

Making working conditions as appealing as possible in order to retain staff has always been a ‘given’ in management terms.

So could the current market conditions be leading to a new model in which companies welcome staff departures as a way of controlling costs?

This may look appealing to the accountants but has big ramifications for Customer Relationship Management!

It is no co-incidence that John Lewis is performing well in difficult market conditions. Their staff actually know something about the products they are selling – unlike the average salesperson in Wickes or B&Q.

Staff knowledge as a Key Performance or Profit Indicator? Why not!

I know in which store I prefer to buy my everyday DIY products!

Travis Perkins underperforms but Tile Giant sales up