Business Opportunities

Summarised below are just a few of the business topics that we are interested in and which we believe should be of real value to business. Here are just a few comments on some of the areas that we are exploring.

Personal information management

We don’t give our address books to the government to manage, so why would we want to let them store any more of our personal data? After all they can’t keep what they already have secret. Yet Jacqui Smith seems determined to introduce legislation to try to track everything we do on the phone or web.

2009 will be the year that the consumer starts to fight back against the institutional management of our data. Consumers will begin to take control of their data and time and seek to limit access to businesses they don’t like, while encouraging those that they do. This is the world of personal information management.

The wasted cost of traditional customer acquisition

Traditional customer acquisition is now a hugely expensive and inefficient process. It is positively 20thCentury. Many large companies are so hardwired into it that they find it hard to adapt to new techniques, that may have a high short-term cost but bring a much longer and more significant benefit. There is a huge opportunity for business to facilitate a reverse acquisition process which encourages “would be” customers to state what they want and how they want to be served and actually completely re-orientate the cost to serve.

Personal Branding

The last 5 years has seen the gradual rise of the personal image consultant – people and companies who help you make more of yourself. Even the popular press are now talking openly about their existence. Still it has taken some time to get here from the 90’s when Tom Peters penned his book about the brand called you. Social media and the incredible rise in popularity of sites like Facebook have kicked this on. But the lack of purpose of many social networking sites and the spread of the recessionary effect, may yet see the development of a personal branding phenomenon as consumers strive to make more of themselves and to create more commercial value from their time.

Seller relationship management

There are a number of different expressions for the concept of vendor relationship management, seller relationship management or even supplier relationship management. We don’t like any of them much because they are not everyday language and certainly not something you would hear said in the pub! Whilst there are subtle differences between concepts like reverse marketing or seller relationship management, we think that the most interesting point is what will bring this alive for the consumer? What will engage them? How much of it is about price or are there real opportunities with service? We believe there is a lot of mileage for businesses that are prepared to explore this area

Britain’s top needs and wishes – the great innovation hole

We have carried out a number of qualitative and quantitative research studies into what the biggest unmet needs and wishes are in Britain. What is interesting about this is that there are some significant needs that people have, that are not being provided for by business. What is clear is that business often focuses on smaller unmet needs that require less fundamental change to their existing processes to satisfy. This means that radical innovation is rare and that the there are a large number of innovation opportunities still waiting to be tackled.

Is it any wonder that so many people (10% of the UK population) still have an unmet need “To protect my family’s health”, when policies are complicated and only cover certain things. It is almost impossible to buy one policy that covers health, life assurance and disability.

Or what about the ever present need “to get fit”? One of the reasons that this remains so unfulfilled is because people tire of a gym so quickly. No wonder then that new companies like British Military Fitness are finally appearing, that offer more interesting, varied or fun programmes. But still it remains very difficult to find a broader fitness / sport package that gives you access to a range of fitness options in your area

Equally a huge number of people want to “travel the world” but most trips are either geared to gap year students with months to spend or very expensive tours.

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