Breaking compromises

?It? is a new idea or a new way of going to market. It often requires behavioral change and investment. It always requires risk taking and initiative. The discouraging response is rarely based on facts, market testing, or even a fair and open discussion.

The Boston Consulting Group's quest is to change both the response and the result. Our belief is that the combination of analysis, dialogue, and courage can create breakthrough results. It takes all three to stay ahead of constant change, understand the consumer's point of view, break the seemingly intractable compromises we all unthinkingly accept, and create an adaptive and responsive organization.

Breakthroughs are tough. One of our clients, a genius who has invented a series of retail blockbusters, calls it "seeing around the corner and creating next. " To create a successful "next," you have to focus on the consumer's total experience with your brand, as well as on his or her hopes and dreams. Your goal is to develop products that fulfil needs customers weren't even aware of.

Whether it's a snack, a washing machine, a frozen dinner, or a specialty retail store, the brand experience begins the moment the consumer learns about the brand and continues through repurchase after repurchase. It includes everything from store location and decor to package design, merchandising, product quality credit policies, staff and management cultures, after-sales services, and even parking. For any targeted group of consumers, however, some elements will be more important than others; and for any business, some will be more cost effective to undertake. Therefore, a business doesn't need to do everything right as long as it does the right things right-for the target consumer.

Doing the right things right begins with mapping the consumer's total experience with the brand, discovering the reasons for defection, and plotting the opportunities for intervention. But since a company can't improve everything, it has to measure the size of the prize-for both consumers and the business. Once it knows what to do, it can create a design plan that includes all the right tools and then roll it out to the whole business system to capture new apostles for the brand.

It's not surprising to hear the same names over and over again when people talk about their favoite brands: Fritos, Big Mac, Lexus, Nordstrom, Victoria's Secret, Sony, Absolut, KitchenAid, DisneyWorld, Pokemon, Windex, and Ford's F150 light truck. The companies that own those brands go out of their way to forge lifetime bonds with their customers. They know which tradeoffs they need to make in order to provide the kind of experiences their customers will talk about. Their passion for their customers and their belief in thorough research over guesswork ensure that they will do the right things for their businesses as well as for their customers.

Most ordinary mortals settle for extrapolating from current trends. But if you want to create the future rather than play catch-up, you need to ask yourself some tough questions, such as:

• What is our brand's most serious failing?
• What latent dissatisfactions are we overlooking?
• Is our organization committed to finding a better way?
• How good are our best ideas and how long will they last?
• How much change can we learn to sustain and how quickly can we do it?

We are offering this selection from our series because we want you to achieve a new level of aspiration, courage, and intensity. We hope you?ll find at least one or two articles that speak to the issues you've been struggling with. We also hope you?ll share the ideas that come to your mind as you read this anthology.

Table of contents

OPERATING EFFICIENCY.
Don't Get Trapped in the Skills Gap (D. Edelman & J. Levitan).
Make in a Week What You Sell in a Week (N. Fiske).
Price by Design, Not by Default (M. Grindfors, et al.).
Building Partnerships Through Discovery (R. Padgett & P. Siegel).
When to Deconstruct (D. Edelman & D. Heuskel).
Starting Fresh: Taking a Value Appproach to Costs, (K. Helmkamp & J. Chapuis).
The Power of Direct Story Delivery (M. Gjaja & H. Vogel).
RETAILING.
Reinvigorating the Core: The Retailer's Challenge (F. Barber).
Capturing the Missing $30 Billion (R. Lesser & C. Cotney).
Inner Cities Are the Next Retailing Frontier (M. Porter, et al.).
Levels of the Game in Frequency Marketing (T. Breazeale & T. Chassaing).
A Frontline Without Limits (A. Miles & Y. Morieux).
Systematic Value Creation in Retail (M. Krentz & K. Waddell).
MARKETING AND SELLING.
From Lone Rangers to the New Selling Elite (C. Costa, et al.).
The Research Advantage: The Marketplace Meets Management (J. Everett).
Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Neglected Customers (D. Nelson).
To Your Health (F. Barber).
THE COMSUMER.
Segmenting for Innovation (J. Everett & P. Siegel).
Winning a Segment-of-One at a Time (D. Edelman & S. Malak).
Consumer Distemper (D. Pecaut & J. Dea).
Customer Retention: Beyond Bribes and Golden Handcuffs (T. Chassaing, et al.).
One Size Doesn't Fit All (J. Everett & B. Hulit).
THE BRAND.
Total Brand Management (D. Edelman & M. Silverstein).
Brand Renaissance (D. Pecaut).
The Brandnet Company (A. Mei-Pochtler & P. Airey).
Experience Your Brand (G. Stalk).
Creating a Flawless Brand Experience (M. Silverstein).
The CEO as Total Brand Manager (G. Stalk).
Managing Brands for Value (R. Bixner, et al.).
E-COMMERCE.
Boom or Bust On-Line (T. Chassaing, et al.).
Branding on the Internet: Navigating Around the Hype (D. Goldstein, et al.).
Serving the E-Generation (D. Edelman, et al.).
Myths and Realities of On-Line Retailing (D. Pecaut).
Winning on the Net: Can Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Succeed on the Internet? (J. Davis & S. Gunby).
GLOBAL MARKETS.
Global Conquistadors (P. Siegel & M. Silverstein).
Meeting the Local Challenge in China (J. Wong & M. Bokkerink).
The Uncompromising Asian Organization (M. Bokkerink & W. Hamid).
Rediscovering the Asian Promise (W. Hamid & D. Young).
STAYING AHEAD.
Believing in Growth (J. Chapuis).
The Paradox of Success (B. Jones & M. Silverstein).
Achieving Domain Expertise (B. Jones & M. Silverstein).
Seeds of Destruction (M. Silverstein & E. Huet).
Manage Your Value (M. Deimler & J. Whitehurst).
Six Challenges for the New Millennium (M. Silverstein).