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© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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29-30 April, 2015 | ICC, ExCel, London
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
How to Achieve Long-Term Organic Profit Growth
Patrick Barwise | London Business School
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
Patrick Barwise
London Business School
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
4
Sustained Profitable Growth

Percent of large companies 1990 – 2004:
Any 5 consecutive years:
24%
Any 10 consecutive years:
5%
All 15 years:
1%
Source: Chakravarthy and Lorange, Profit or Growth?, 2007
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Easy to Say, Hard to Do
« Marketing is
not a specialised
business
activity…it is the
whole enterprise
seen from the
customer’s point
of view. »
Peter Drucker
The Practice of Management, 1954
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Why Is It So Difficult?

Against human nature – especially for some people

Not always easy to know what customers want

Relentless pressure on time and costs

Obsession with USPs, gimmicks, fads and fashions

Easier to add features than to eliminate them

Customer insights achieve nothing unless they reach decision-makers and are acted on
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Framework for Long-Term Organic Growth
Customer
Promise
Innovation
Beyond the
Familiar
Customer
Trust
Open
Organisation
Continuous
Improvement
Source: Barwise and Meehan, Beyond the Familiar, 2011
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Customer Relevance
“Customers rarely buy a product or service because it offers something unique.
Usually, they buy the brand that they expect to meet their basic needs from the
category – petrol or strategy consulting or mortgages – a bit better or more
conveniently than the competition.
What customers want is simply better – not more differentiated – products and
services.”
Source: Barwise and Meehan, Simply Better, 2004, Preface
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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PR Triumph:
An Exasperated Customer Writes
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Simply Better Products from Apple
“Our goals are very simple – to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we
won’t do it.
Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different or want to appear new. I think those are
completely the wrong goals…
Its not about price…or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different – they are corporate goals with scant
regard for people who use the product”
- Sir Jonathan Ive (SVP Design) March 2012
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Continuous Improvement at Apple
(On the iPod and Apple in general)
“It was this relentless improvement that was able to beat our
competitors and yield the market share that it did”
- Steve Jobs, November 2010
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Opening Up
Customer
Promise
Innovation
Beyond the
Familiar
Customer
Trust
Open
Organisation
Continuous
Improvement
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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You’re Not As Open As You Think
Boss:
“Why is Janet leaving?”
Colleague:
“She’s been unhappy for months”
Boss:
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Colleague:
“She tried”
Source: Barwise and Meehan, ‘So you think you’re a good listener’, HBR 2008
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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60 Years of Rejecting
Unwelcome Messages
1946: Drucker’s The Concept of the Corporation:
“An attack on the company, as hostile as any mounted by the left”
2007: “I found GM impossible to deal with. They had their own fixed ideas and
always thought they were right.”
- Wally Olins, brand guru
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Framework for Long-Term Organic Growth
Customer
Promise
Innovation
Beyond the
Familiar
Customer
Trust
Open
Organisation
Continuous
Improvement
Source: Barwise and Meehan, Beyond the Familiar, 2011
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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Five Questions for Your Company
1.
Can your middle managers accurately describe your customer promise?
2.
Can every member of your top team list the three things that most erode trust among your
existing customers?
3.
Is your brand really the best option for customers, and will it still be next month and next year?
4.
Have you acted on any novel ideas in the last year which led to a significant innovation beyond
the familiar?
5.
Have your front-line staff asked you any uncomfortable questions or suggested any important
improvements over the last three months?
© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
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© 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.