Life is Change
Forty years ago on September 2, 1969 an event took place that changed our lives forever … the network which would become the internet was born. Only a handful of people knew it at the time and I suspect none of them could have envisioned the impact on our society. Actually, this is a familiar [...]
Planning for a comeback
Most of our businesses have not escaped the impact of the recession. Some have had a severe downturn while others have had a more moderate negative effect. Regardless the current forecast of the economists that study these things is that we are coming to the end of the recession and, although recovery will be [...]
Finding your company’s social media voice
Ask most companies if they would like the chance to directly interact with prospects and customers, create relationships, gain insights, and market a little along the way – and all at minimal cost – and nearly all will answer with a resounding “Yes!“ If that’s the case, then why are so few companies embracing social [...]
Déjà-Vu all over again
It’s déjà-vu all over again! Alterity, the company I founded 25 years ago, has just entered into an agreement with EasyBiz, the Johannesburg based distributor of QuickBooks® for Sub-Saharan Africa, to distribute our flagship wholesale distribution software offering, ACCTivate!. In the summer of 1975, I was asked to go to South Africa and introduce an earlier [...]
Buying “green” Selling “green” and Living “green”
In today’s economy it can pay to be “green.” As Earth Day approaches we’ve mined the ACCTivate! customer database and have noticed three trends: buying “green”, selling “green” and living “green.” For the most part, these are not companies staffed by people with activist approaches. They are companies that have recognized the commercial and competitive [...]
Stay on course in challenging times
“The worst economic times – the Great Depression – was actually a rich period of management reinvention…Enterprises outperformed competitors and actually grew by excelling in understanding and satisfying customers’ changing needs.” - Harvard Business Review: Editor’s Blog, June 2008 “Companies that delay investments [in current strategy] may forego significant growth opportunities when uncertainty subsides and [...]
Who’s that knocking at my door?
Cyber security is a hot topic. It has gone from a bunch of precocious adolescents with too much time on their hands to international spies and criminals. The stories are circulating around the news media about the evil doers who are knocking at our doors to retrieve our identities, our personal data including credit cards [...]
How I learned to play with the Big Boys! (and make money at it)
These days it appears that the entire world is pushing us to do more and more on the internet. Many small businesses feel as if they are being dragged kicking and screaming to levels of technology that is too expensive, too complicated, and too difficult to manage. Perhaps. In today’s world, however, there are solutions [...]
Where’s the peanut!
Every time a new disastrous report comes out about the current salmonella outbreak, I think of all of the food distribution businesses that are in the unenviable situation that they can’t trace the sales of specific items to their specific customers. In other words, “Where’s the peanut!” Product recall has been a fact of business [...]
Maybe it’s time to look ahead
By now everyone that hasn’t been hiding behind the moon has heard the various “experts” tell the world how gloomy the business climate is. Undoubtedly we are collectively in tough times. I have been reading, however, some comments by thinking businessmen that are pushing the concept that this is the perfect time to invest. Craig [...]
