April 12, 2011

Ikea, Where's the Video Instructions? | Mark Evans Tech

IKEA is a wonderful place to visit but their product does not look the same at home - for me, their book cases need to be secured to the wall. I am glad for modern technology as my books and CDs seem to be dwindling in volume. Mark Evans made me laugh with his return to IKEA:

After swearing off buying anything from Ikea as a rite of passage in becoming a real adult, I succumbed recently in an effort to refurbish the home office without pillaging the corporate bank account. The magic about Ikea is how wonderful they make everything look. You stroll through the showroom and the world seems like your oyster…until you get everything home and suddenly realize it has to be assembled.
So, you unpack all the boxes, pull out parts, which includes lots and lots of little pieces (screws, widgets, etc.) and hunt for the instructions. What’s amazing is the instructions haven’t changed in years; they’re still black and white, no-frills, step-by-step instructions that assume everything is just so easy to follow.
Wrong.

Needless to say, the assembly process is frustrating, time-consuming and a serious threat to relationships if you do it with someone else. And you end up with extra parts, which I’m pretty sure Ikea doesn’t supply as a convenience.

It struck me there are some easy things Ikea could do to make things a lot better and easier. First, it needs to colour-code its instructions and the parts to remove a lot of guess-work that goes into assembling things.

Second, Ikea really, really needs to embrace video.

Ikea, Where's the Video Instructions? | Mark Evans Tech

Venture Law Lines: When University Commercialization Offices Turn Troll

Suzie Dingwall has a great post on patents.

Venture Law Lines: When University Commercialization Offices Turn Troll

There are other alternatives for financing than the bank

Why Use Private Equity? Do You Want to Grow Your Business? If your business is not at $20,000, private equity investors will pass you by.
As we learn in most realms of life, the low-priced products aren’t always best for you. And with a greater number of private investors creating a growing company’s market for financing, many Canadian business owners are discovering there are alternative sources of capital. Probably, the most exciting news is that private equity deals are being done for as little as $500,000 – a sign that private equity is shifting from Bay Street onto Main Street. Read more (PDF) >

How to fuel growth, technology and social media at Rotman

The Next Steps program gives you the confidence and skills you need to take your business to the next level. Interact with a senior-level advisory panel of accomplished women entrepreneurs, and gain knowledge from peer mentors who have shared your business challenges. The six-module format allows you to take what you learn and apply it immediately.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 6pm to 9pm

Rotman, University of Toronto

Jacoline Loewen, Author and Partner at Loewen & Partners:

Fuelling Growth: Technology & Social Media

Learn how to use new technologies and social media strategically. Maximize the impact of the X factors on your business development.

April 11, 2011

6 Tips for value pricing

Why is the concept of value pricing seen to be radical? It makes a great deal of sense and I appreciated the LinkedIn discussion and thought I would share some of the highlights. Here is one of the posts.
After mentioning I had taken 14 pages of notes on Baker's book on Value Pricing, above, Jacoline Loewen suggested I share a few Aha's from these notes. Here they are: Baker presents the idea that professional advisers should keep in mind that we are (or should be) giving our clients (which he calls customers) a crowbar with which to open a treasure chest. If so, ten times the price would still be a bargain for our crowbar. We should not provide a cheaper price merely because, for example, we may have lower fixed overhead. Value drives price, not cost. If we have significant intellectual capital (as defined by Baker), offering it at a lower price devalues it and sacrifices a significant amount of profit.
We should focus on the totality of our services our firm provides the customer or client and consider bundling them together into a fixed price agreement, not an hourly rate agreement. The billable hour becomes the floor, not the ceiling.
Baker outlines methods of qualifying the right customers/clients, the sins of hourly billing and ways to eliminate them, how to understand the value we offer that customers seek, key predictive indicators for knowledge workers, and eight steps to implementing value pricing.
In his section on developing and pricing offerings, the author identifies several elements, any or all of which a firm’s Value Council (explained in the text) may want to make part of a fixed price agreement, over and above the hourly rate, which is never mentioned:

Fixed Price. (A guarantee that the customer/client will not be surprised by an invoice; that all work will be authorized in advance, so that the client will be able to budget his or her professional spend with certainty.)
Change Orders. (This ensures customers that work will never be done without their authorization on price, terms and scope, giving them a choice on how to proceed.)
Service Guarantee. (An overt statement that your project will create value three to ten times greater than the cost or the customer doesn’t pay.)
Price Guarantee. (The customer may ignore any invoice they receive for which they did not authorize price, payment terms and scope. The customer will never be surprised by an invoice because all work is priced in advance.)
Unlimited Access. (The customer is granted unlimited phone calls and meetings to discuss whatever the customer wants.)
Payment Terms. (Financing plans.)

The subtitle of Baker’s book indicates the concept of value pricing is radical. It may be radical, but after carefully studying his book, it makes a lot of sense to me.
Posted by Robert R Dunford
Robert R. Dunford, Principal
http://www.GCIResearch.com
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Rick Spence, National Post, review

"A lot of business people still have trouble with the concept of strategic planning. They wonder who should do it, and what it's for. I just encountered a great explanation of strategy. It comes from a book, The Power of Strategy by Jacoline Loewen.

"I think that strategy is very similar to the search for the Holy Grail. Renowned knights traveled great distances and overcame severe hardship in the struggle to find this sacred relic, the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Finally, Sir Galahad was the one who discovered that the Holy Grail is, in fact, within us. There is no right or wrong answer -- it is the journey that provides the learning, not the Holy Grail itself.

In strategy, it is the process of people going through the questioning and thinking that ingrains the strategy into their everyday actions, not the plan itself."

You can read a much longer excerpt from Loewen's book at

post by Rick Spence, Canadian Entrepreneur