September 2011

I love Italy, I’m fascinated by cars so it’s no surprise that I feel a huge attraction towards Maserati but the new Maserati Kubang looks like a branding mistake to me.

Fiat have done a great job in reviving the Maserati brand after the dark days in the eighties. I fear the Kubang is a step backwards.

What is the Maserati Kubang?

Estimated to cost about £100,000 the Maserati Kubang  is a luxury 4×4 rival to the Range Rover and the Porsche Cayenne.

Maserati hope that it’s going to be a huge success but its image clashes with just about everything I associate with the brand name… Maserati.

Here is a short video of the Kubang being launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show 2011.

A Jeep Grand Cherokee With A Ferrari Engine

The V8 engine comes from Ferrari and the four wheel drive technology comes from the Jeep Grand Cherokee so it’s got a proven pedigree of performance.

But it’s not a traditional Maserati.

The Ghibli is a classic Maserati from the 1960s. It’s low and sleek and very desirable as it epitomises the glamour from the sixties along with the Jaguar E-Type and Lamborghini Miura.

The Attraction In Building The Maserati Kubang

Two words.

Porsche Cayenne.

According to figures I’ve taken from Wikipedia, Porsche sold 100,806 Cayenne vehicles between 2003 and 2010, 42% of their total sales.

Yes the Cayenne is ugly.

But it is so popular that it is changing what the brand Porsche means.

It used to be clear – a 911, a 944, a 928 – all small, quick sports cars. Even the down market 924 had style.

You can see the attraction that this luxury SUV market has for Maserati or the big bosses in Fiat who wanted to make the vehicle and squeezed it into Maserati as the most suitable home.

Will The Maserati Kubang Succeed?

Possibly.

I don’t like SUV’s, so I must admit I am biased but the lure of the three-pronged trident badge is strong.

Who except for the extremely rich wouldn’t rejoice in saying “I drove down here in my Maserati.”

Mind you I don’t think it’s going to be much of a “pulling car”. I can’t imagine the lady lured into the car park with the line “Do you want to see my Maserati?” is going to expect a poshed-up agricultural vehicle.

Will The Maserati Kubang Damage The Maserati Brand?

The brand has proven to be remarkable resilient from the magic days of my youth – the Ghibli, the Bora and Merak, the Khamsin were all cars to drool over.

Then things got messy but Maserati bounced back.

If the Kubang is a commercial success then hopefully it will provide the funds to launch more proper Maseratis.

A few years ago I believed that scenario planning techniques were too complicated and time consuming for many small businesses to focus on.

I saw scenario planning as a strategic planning tool for big companies but small and medium sized businesses were better off putting together their plan on most likely assumptions and then get on with implementing it.

I was wrong.

While scenario planning still won’t be right for many smaller businesses – what they get out from the exercise won’t be worth the time and effort they put in – for some, using effective scenario planning techniques is the only was to make sure that the strategy is robust enough to cope with alternative future realities.

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While Led Zeppelin aren’t my favourite rock band from the 1970s, they are such an archetypal group and widely copied.

Let’s take a look at what made Led Zeppelin special and wonder what it would be like if more Led Zeppelin soundalikes had made it big.

Led Zeppelin – Why Are They So Special?

The Led Zeppelin Band Members

The band members all had very distinct profiles:

• Robert Plant – the sexy bare-chested lead singer in tight trousers and with the high shrieking voice.
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• Jimmy Page – the guitar hero with interest in the occult.
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• John Bonham – the hard drinking, thunderous drummer.
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• John Paul Jones – the quiet, reserved bassist and keyboard player.

Led Zeppelin The Biggest Band In the World

For much of the early seventies, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and The Who battled for the title of the biggest band in the world.

According to Wikipedia, Led Zeppelin are still the fourth best selling artists in the United States although they are a long way behind The Beatles.

No wonder they were such a big influence on up-and-coming band and were regularly imitated.

Top 10 Led Zeppelin Rip-Off Bands

Personally I always thought it was lazy journalism. For example, I remember reading many comments that Aerosmith sounded like Led Zep but looked like The Rolling Stones.

It’s also ironic as Led Zeppelin themselves plundered the blues heritage as they took ideas and adapted them.

What If All Rock Bands Sounded Like Led Zeppelin?

It would be so boring.

Variety is the spice of life and a pale imitation of Led Zeppelin is just that.

But we see imitation so often in business.

If something works well and proves popular, there is a huge temptation to copy it.

Too often product-markets converge into commodities where preference is driven by price since there’s little difference in what you get.

But success in rock music is different.

There are commonalities within musical genres but each successful group creates its own identity which makes it unique.

Robert Plant was born in West Bromwich, about four miles away from where I live. His big rival as a heavy rock singer Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath was born in Aston, Birmingham and that’s about three miles away in the opposite direction. They were even born in the same year, 1948.

While Zeppelin and Sabbath were both pioneers of rock, their sound is very different. I can imagine some fans loving one and hating the other. Personally I preferred Deep Purple and The Who to both.

I was interested to hear about the launch of GXG Markets UK this morning which I thought was a great example of finding and filling a gap in a market.

What is GXG Markets UK?

GXG Markets offer a three tier London based equity market for small and medium-sized businesses.

• GXG Regulated Market

• GXG MTF

• GXG OTC

The idea is that it forms a bridge between the private equity world of venture capitalists and business angels and the more formal small company markets like Plus and AIM.

What’s Different About GXG Markets UK?

GXG Markets are moving away from the market maker concept used on Plus and AIM where market makers list their buying and selling prices with potentially sizeable spreads in between to matched bargain trading where a price is agreed between buyer and seller.

Prices move with a market maker on sentiment and regardless of whether deals are being done at those prices or whether there is news about the company’s prospects.

For More Information About GXG Markets UK

Go to their website at gxgmarkets.co.uk

The downside is that taking away the market maker role will reduce liquidity of shares since to sell, you have to find a buyer or to buy, you have to find a seller.

Saturday night is takeaway night in our house so I was very interested to hear about Housebites, a new deluxe takeaway food service which is about to burst onto the scenes today 12 September 2011.

The Problem With Traditional Takeaway Food

Takeaway food is usually easy to order and often quite cheap but it’s often not very good.

And if you have dietary issues, you worry about what’s gone into it.

Housebites Is Different

The unique selling point for Housebites promises:

• the easy convenience of a takeaway with the restaurant quality food delivered to your door
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• with the food prepared by personally chosen local chefs
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• a chance to interact with the chef
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• feedback through social media

Has The Housebites Concept Changed?

A quick search on the Internet suggests that the Housebites concept has changed slightly since it was first conceived and promoted in 2010.

Originally it seemed to be focused on hosted dinner parties or as a public supper club (think Come Dine With Me where you don’t have to do the cooking?).

The video makes it clear that you don’t have to go anywhere – Housebites will deliver their freshly cooked food to you.

How Housebites Now Works

1. Go to the Housebites website at www.housebites.com and enter your postcode – it’s London only at the moment
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2. Browse the menus by chefs in your area by day
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3. Choose the number of main courses, sides, starters, desserts or drinks you want
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4. Decide when you want it delivered
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5. Checkout and pay
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6. Wait for your meal to be delivered
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7. Give feedback to the chef and to other Housebites customers
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8. Come back and order again the next time you want a gourmet takeaway
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The Differentiation Factors

This gourmet takeaway service is crossing two sectors:

• good, local food which you have to go out to a restaurant to enjoy
• the easy convenience of a takeaway

This is therefore differentiation by the what and where factors – great food prepared for you but eaten at home.

It’s also building up on the differentiation by who factor as it gives local chefs a chance to build up their own local celebrity status.

Let me explain.

Housebites -What’s In It For The Chefs?

The chefs who have joined Housebites include professional chefs with experience at The Ivy, Fifteen, Le Caprice and Bluebird as well as amateur gifted chefs. Andy Oliver, a 2009 masterchef finalist is one of the people behind Housebites.

So why are good chefs getting involved?

It seems that it’s not much fun being a station chef in a restaurant which is an impression I’ve gained from watching programmes on restaurants on TV. Low pay, boring tasks and being shouted at in the organised chaos of a busy restaurant seem to be the norm.

Housebites gives the chefs a chance to design menus, buy ingredients, prepare the full meal and get feedback from customers while they fantasise about one day owning their own restaurant.

Since the failure rate of new restaurants is terrible, this gives the chefs involved in Housebites a chance to build up their own local reputation and to develop a group of loyal followers.

Looking At The Three New Business Risk Factors

In Will Your New Business Succeed I looked at three risk factors – demand risk, competitive risk and capability risk.

It’s difficult to predict a strong demand for anything in these times of austerity cuts and falling living standards but I think there’s demand for a better priced takeaway service provided the prices are kept in check.

Takeaways have lost some of their traditional custom as people have cut back but also picked up business from those people who used to eat in restaurants regularly.

Housebites have positioned themselves as a middleman between customers who want food and chefs who can provide it. This type of service can work very well (think eBay) but success relies on building up a critical mass on both the demand and supply side.

Housebites may be first but there doesn’t look to be anything to stop a competitor from imitating the Housebites idea and competing harder and faster for customers and chefs.

WeBuyAnyCar.com used brute-force TV advertising and an irritating jingle to drum its brand name into the minds of the public but competitors have jumped on the bandwagon with similar sounding names. Mind you they may well be promoting their rivals who own the number one position in the minds of the market.

It will be interesting to see how much marketing muscle Housebites can put in to build up brand name awareness. It’s started well with a one-page article in the Sunday Times Style magazine yesterday.

On the capability risk, if you make a promise of restaurant quality food to win preference over traditional takeaways and you charge a premium price, then you’d better deliver.

I understand that Housebites selects its chefs carefully and in the London area, it has been testing the concept with offers of free meals. This is encouraging and the social media feedback should reward the chefs who do offer great food.

I suspect that scalability is a potential problem both as the individual chefs get busier and as more chefs are brought on board. The roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings I cooked last night was pretty good, even if I do say it myself. It was even on schedule. I’d have struggled to cook anything else and even professional, experienced chefs must run into trouble when everything needs to be done at once.

What Do You Think About The Housebites Concept?

I hope Housebites succeed because I believe that it is a different business idea which brings benefits to the customers who want to experience better food without having to leave their homes.

What do you think?

Let me know by leaving a comment.

I want to tell you about Naturetrek, a specialist birdwatching and wildlife holiday company that is based in the UK but provides amazing wildlife adventure holidays around the world.

The Theory & Practice Of Differentiating Your Business

My blog shares plenty of the theory about differentiating a business but it’s nice to see the concepts of differentiation, strategic focus and niche marketing in practice and I think Naturetrek is a great example.

Of course, it helps in that it combines two areas of particular interest to me, travel/holidays and wildlife. I’ve already written about travel agency differentiation.

It also gives me an excuse to share some of my favourite photos from my wildlife safari holidays.

African Wild Dogs

What is Naturetrek?

To quote from the Naturetrek website

“Naturetrek operates the largest selection of professionally organised, expert-led wildlife holidays and tours in the world. We’ve been organising specialist wildlife tours for 25 years.”

That’s a strong unique selling point. Let’s break down the positioning statement:

• A very clear what – professionally organised, expert-led wildlife holidays and tours
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• And where – all around the world – I’ll list some of the tours later so you can see how specialised it is.
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• And how many – a combination of “the largest selection” (and it is vast) and “the 25 years” which gives confidence and credibility.

Naturetrek Sample Tours

Here are some examples of Naturetrek wildlife holidays taken from their 2012 brochure that arrived a couple of weeks ago:

You’ll see quite a variety from what I’d think are the popular holidays to some very specialist tours:

• Kenya’s Wildlife

• Namibia, Botswana & Zambia – Etosha to the Victoria Falls

• Finland – Just Brown Bears

• Spitzbergen – Real Of The Polar Bear

• Wolves & Bustards In Rural Spain

• Temples & Tigers – The Best Of Northern India

• Borneo’s Orang-utans

• The Carmague In Spring

• Iceland in Autumn – Glaciers, Icebergs & Waterfalls

• Bulgaria’s Dragonflies

• Butterflies In Croatia

• And many, many more – the range of wildlife and nature tours that Naturetrek offer is remarkable.

Wildlife Holidays Are Amazing

Elephants, again in Botswana

Without trying to sound like I’m promoting Naturetrek, I can’t put into words just how special it is to see animals in the wild.

Margaret and I have become addicted to safari holidays in Southern Africa. We did our first in 2001 and our sixth in 2008. Unfortunately my health issues have caused us to stop but I’d like to think that in 2012 or 2013 we can venture into the wilds again.

Still it does show that you should take the chance to do something this special when you can because you never know what is around the corner.

We’ve seen some amazing things including this incredible sighting of a female leopard who appeared in front of us and then climbed a tree to put on a show.

The stunning highlight of a great holiday in Botswana – our best leopard sighting ever

This Isn’t A Naturetrek Holidays Review

I want to make it clear that this isn’t a review of Naturetrek wildlife holidays because we haven’t travelled with them.

When we’ve been to Southern Africa – South Africa, Botswana and Zambia – it has always been with a specialist South Africa travel agency – Cedarberg – who have been excellent. We met a couple of South Africans on a cruise holiday and it sounded wonderful so the next year we went to Cape Town, the Garden Route and finished near the Addo Elephant National Park. We were hooked.

We had talked about doing one of the European bear holidays with Naturetrek to celebrate my 50th birthday but my health problems got in the way.

I love getting the Naturetrek brochure to see where we could go but there are aspects of the marketing which don’t quite tip me over from interest to action. Their MD, David Mills asked for reasons and I sent him a long email.

It will be interesting to see if he responds and how quickly. In fact Naturetrek may not realise it but if, when and how they respond to my reply to the request to their question “why haven’t you bought from us” has become a big moment of truth which could define the relationship on the purchase tipping point.

Update on Naturetrek – it took five weeks to receive an acknowledgement from my email which was disappointing and I suspect only happened because of this blog.

Have You Been On A Naturetrek Wildlife Holiday?

I’m using Naturetrek as an example of a business which has a very strong position in a tightly defined niche but I’m very happy for this article to include comments from those people who have been on one of the Naturetrek tours.

Did you have a great time?

Did you see the wildlife you hoped to see?

Did you find the company provided good customer service and responded well to your needs?

Would you go back again and would you recommend a Naturetrek wildlife holiday to other people?

Key Success Factors For A Wildlife Holiday

I’ll just step away from Naturetrek and share my thoughts on the key success factors for a wildlife holiday.

1. The wildlife or nature experience. Animals and birds follow their own rules and in the wild, no sighting can be guaranteed. However, they have patterns of behaviours which can be predicted. Your experience will depend on what you see, what you see them doing, how long you see them and how close you are. When it’s right it just feels so magical to be sharing their world.
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2. Whether there is a guide and if so, the quality of the guide. You may have assumed that professional guiding was always included in a wildlife holiday but you can drive around the South African National Parks like the world-famous Kruger Park on your own in a hire car. A good guide and/or tracker can make a big difference to your wildlife experience in terms of what you see and learn. They’ll have plenty of great stories to share as well.
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3. The time of the year you go. This impacts on the weather and the environment. Too hot, too cold, too rainy and your experience won’t be as good as it could be. Quality of wildlife sightings depend on how lush the bush is and surprising large animals can hide.
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4. The accommodation and food has to be appropriate to your holiday environment and expectations. The menu can also be an issue as we don’t eat the game we’ve been admiring and filming.
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5. The other people on the holiday. We’re generally talking about small groups on wildlife holidays and you’re likely to be together for much of the time.
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6. What else you can do on the holiday. We’re not sunbathing by the swimming pool type of people and the luxury spa treatments that are sometimes offered don’t appeal either. During the wildlife intensive sections, we’re happy to read and catch up on sleep – you match your times to the animals and that can mean very early mornings. It’s also nice to have some history and/or culture included to yourself more of a feeling for the country you’re visiting.

I’ve wrestled with the paradox of the value for money of information products for many years.

I’ve bought plenty of excellent books for £10 and I’ve also paid hundreds of pounds to hear someone teach a small part of what is in a book in a day or even half day seminar.

Sometimes I’ve felt ripped off. Other times I’ve thought that I’ve had great value.

I’ve had to think about what makes the difference.

The Value For Money Of Information Products [continue reading…]