Tag: business strategies

The Impact of Macroforces on Coke’s Strategy

May 12, 2010 Blog 3 comments

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Tom LaForge, Global Director of Human & Cultural Insights from Coca-Cola

This man has a dream job. Also known as the Global Director of Human & Cultural Insights at Coca-Cola, Tom LaForge’s occupation is to sniff out trends, foresee the future, and position Coca-Cola in the ever evolving consumer market. At my recent trip to Coke’s Global Innovation and Technology Center at Shanghai (courtesy of Coca-Cola), I had the privilege of listening to Tom’s views on macroforces and how Coca-Cola responds to them.

What are the eight macroforces according to Coke? Well, they are:


Why Avatar is so Awesome

December 22, 2009 2 comments


Courtesy of OfficialAvatarMovie

By now, probably half of the world’s cinema going geeks would have watched Avatar, James Cameron’s latest mega blockbuster featuring blue-skinned 3 m tall aliens battling robot riding humans in a tropical moon. With a huge budget of close to US$500 million, Avatar is one of the most expensive Hollywood productions to date, and initial box office results look promising despite the relentless wintry snowstorms in the Western world. There are many excellent movie reviews available on the web, so I wouldn’t bore you with yet another critique of its hits and misses.

Let us look instead at some of the ingredients which Avatar has applied that led to its successful opening and made it such a huge global rave.


Putting Ideas into Action

November 4, 2009 Blog 1 comment


Here’s what happens when theory (and bureaucracy) overrides action (courtesy of RedState)

As frequent bloggers, Facebookers, and Twitterers, we need to be mindful of lapsing into theoreticism, which is the preference for theories over action. In Chinese, we call it “zhi shang tan bing” or discussing stratagems on paper.

It is nice to be known (or branded) as a “guru” and be seen as an expert in a particular subject matter. One can spew out gems of wisdom ad infinitum (or ad nauseum, depending on which side of the fence you sit on), and create numerous “10 ways to do this better” lists. Like this post here for instance.