100 Great Business Ideas from leading companies around the world Jeremy Kourdi 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS FROM LEADING COMPANIES AROUND THE WORLD Jeremy Kourdi Copyright © 2009 Jeremy Kourdi First published in 2008. This edition published in 2009 by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196 Other Marshall Cavendish offices: Marshall Cavendish Ltd. 5th Floor, 32–38 Saffron Hill, London RC1N 8FH, UK • Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA • Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand • Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited The right of Jeremy Kourdi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the publisher. The author and publisher have used their best efforts in preparing this book and disclaim liability arising directly and indirectly from the use and application of this book. All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain necessary copyright permissions. Any omissions or errors are unintentional and will, if brought to the attention of the publisher, be corrected in future printings. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-462-09960-6 Designed by Robert Jones Project managed by Cambridge Publishing Management Ltd Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction vi 1 The ideas 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Building customer trust and loyalty Scenario planning Making your employees proud Using customer information The rule of 150 Information orientation Franchising Eliminating waste (muda) Customer bonding Psychographic profiling Understanding demography Mass customization Leading “top-down” innovation Social networking and transmitting company values Achieving breakthrough growth Deep-dive prototyping Market testing Empowering your customers Cannibalizing Increasing competitiveness Clustering Highlighting unique selling points (USPs) The experience curve The employee–customer–profit chain Measuring employees’ performance 3 5 7 9 11 13 17 19 21 23 25 28 30 32 34 37 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 60 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • iii 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 Brand spaces Being spaces Increasing accessibility Partnering Bumper-sticker strategy Valuing instinct Building a learning organization Reinvention Corporate social responsibility The tipping point Outsourcing Keeping your product offering current Experiential marketing Information dashboards and monitoring performance Flexible working Redefine your audience Vendor lock-in Turning the supply chain into a revenue chain Intelligent negotiating Complementary partnering Feel-good advertising Innovations in day-to-day convenience Lifestyle brands Being honest with customers Instant recognizability Managing a turnaround Diversity Balancing core and the context Business process redesign Convergence Cross-selling and up-selling Kotter’s eight phases of change Business-to-business marketing iv • 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 78 80 82 85 87 89 91 94 96 98 100 102 104 106 108 110 112 114 116 118 120 122 125 127 129 132 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 Employee value proposition Built-in obsolescence Avoiding commoditization Developing employee engagement Managing by wandering about (MBWA) Precision marketing Branding Empowerment Rethinking the budget The buyer’s cycle Direct selling Age-sensitive management Three-factor theory Developing Islamic products Support and challenge groups Clear strategy Six-hat thinking Building business relationships Learning together Microfinance Surviving a downturn Innovation culture Resource building Building trust Emotional intelligence The balanced scorecard Developing a sales culture Market segmentation Audacity Silo busting Selling online Value innovation Talent management 134 136 138 140 142 144 146 149 151 153 155 157 159 162 165 167 170 172 174 176 178 180 182 185 187 189 193 195 197 199 201 204 206 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • v