Patchwork for everyone

Hi all! Today's word is patchwork and therefore I want to present you a new webpage that's shaking the market: La cabaña de troncos.

Their secret: High quality handmade products where you can choose both fabrics and models and make it completely personalized!

You can find them in street markets in Alicante city or through their blog. Have a look and choose between a finished product or a new one. It's up to you!

Everything flows - Innovation as a continuous process in company's life

About 2500 years ago the greek philosopher Heraclitus stated the Panta rhei concept.

"Everything changes and nothing remains still... and... you cannot step twice into the same stream"

To ilustrate my presentation about Competitive Innovation on the Innovation Day in Göttingen, I developed a matrix to show the students the importance of a continuous process of innovation inside the company.

Although some of the managers and business people think we are in an unfixed market, probably they don't realise how fast the changes are taking place. Everything changes and nowadays these changes are coming at a high speed like never before.
As Heraclitus said, nothing remains still and it's really hard for a company to be competitive for more than 10 years with the same product (in some markets, you're out in two or three years...)

Peter Drucker expressed it with the following words:

"An established company which, in an age demanding innovation, is not able to innovate, is doomed to decline and extinction."

Remember that Innovation is not a gag. The use of innovation in your daily business life would make the difference in the mid and long term between successful and unsuccessful companies.

Where do you want to be in 5 or 10 years?

Be safe in the knowledge that out there in a garage somewhere is an entrepreneur forging a bullet with your company’s name on it.You've got one option: you have to shoot first.

Small Private Universities’ limbo - The vanishing of Educational Middle Market.

According to the document of Mc Kinsey Quarterly, there’s a trend for middle markets and companies to disappear in the next years, increasing the world polarization where the high-end and low-end are the only sectors with sustainable growth.

If we apply the results of that study to the Education field and more precisely to Private Universities with a strong focus on business and (of course) Business Schools, we’ll see there’s a growth in the market for business education but according to the polarization process mentioned before.

With reference to the course prize (Master’s prize), we can distribute the business education companies in three big groups:

Low-end market: Public Universities (around 3.000 €)

Middle market: Small and medium private universities and business schools

(Master studies: around 15.000 €)

High-end market: Big universities or Business Schools (around 50.000 €)

According to McKinsey study, there will be a decrease in next years in the number of students of middle market universities like PFH or other small & medium Business Schools. However, since last years there was an increasing number of students attending to these private universities which is probably due to the world crisis, which has increase the number of people that prefer to keep on studying in order to apply for a better job in the future.

We have to consider this situation as an anomalous situation caused by the crisis, but with a middle term view really scaring for middle universities stakeholders.

¿Is there a solution? Of course it is. Companies and managers think that the strategies and services provided that were successful in the past will be successful in the future.

The maintenance of a high level competing system/company is complex and much more in a field like business schools, where students are the product and the client at the same time.

Being aware of future trends and changes in the educational sector is necessary for the survival of these companies.

The following graph shows the life cycle of a company, doesn’t matter in what field.

The graph shows the trend of:

Comfortable Position - Relax - Decadence

According to the graph, only a deep change on company’s strategy would avoid the disaster. Innovation and market strategic positioning in a high-end or low-end market are the solutions for these almost-dying companies trapped in the middle market.



Social Media - Screening applicants

Reppler conducted a study over 300 workers on hiring processes in different companys and the result is clear: over 90% of recruiters use social media to screen applicants.

What do you think? Do you have any picture that your boss shouldn't see? Maybe some of you are thinking about cleaning up your profiles so I'll give you an advice my grandmother used to tell me.

Everybody has something ashamed, it is normal.

So if you're thinking of making a white profile, remember that recruiters suspect about white profiles. Keeping some pictures with friends in bars, practicing sport, etc... will help you to make your profile more trustable although it's not.
Just think on the kind of things you'd like to show and upload them, but after a clean up.

Here it is the original survey result:

Disruptive Innovation vs IT Innovation

What makes the end of 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century different from other periods of history is not the Arab Spring, the International Debt Crisis or the end of the Cold War. What makes different this period of time from others is the speed of the changes take place.

We see everyday in the news many new advances on IT, specially on the internet field and there are so many companies that are focusing their innovation processes and strategies on a change of the IT model: social media, cloud computing, or any other high tech device.

We have to face that although social media seems to be here to stay, it's still a baby and it can and probably do change in the future. Sometimes we trust on foreign adn new technology more than in our own team and their ideas. Sometimes, these ideas, simple and in one way disruptive, would probably set a competitive advantage for your company in comparison to others.

I post here this video to teach you that although important, IT is not the only kind of innovation or developement we can achieve. Sometimes the success comes with something more simple.

The decadence of successful companies

It's hard to succeed in today's world, compiting with high level companies and with continuous changes in technology. This is so true that the 80% of new business go bankrupt in the first two years.
The other 20% survives and the lucky ones may also achieve a leader position of their market or product.

But sometimes, companies and managers think that the decisions, strategies and products that were successful in the past will be successful in the future. So the leader feels confortable and stops thinking about improving.

The main problem is that the leadership of a market or a product is hard to maintain due to high competence so if you feel confortable with your market possition is possible that you're becoming lazy and someone else would be the new leader in a short time.

Success - Confortable Position - Relax - Decadence

Hurry up! Innovation saves company's lifes!