April 15, 2007

Ecommerce business models | How to get a Professional Banner Ad in less than 5 minutes and for less than $5

Today I'm writing about a new start up that has a new approach to online advertising design and is addressed to micro and small businesses which are not familiar with traditional advertising design processes and cannot afford them, thus creating a new offer for those businesses.

Although I'm involved in it, and obviously not objective, I'll try to stay as descriptive as I can describing the company's business model and value proposition.

AdverStore.com has redesigned the process for creating online advertising creative campaigns, in order to make it more efficient, fast and inexpensive for micro and small companies. Advertisers and webmasters can even create free banners to try the service.

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September 30, 2006

Business innovation | Advertising Design is Dead!

Traditional advertising design, of course. I have written several times about the revolution that is taking place in the advertising industry, specially online advertising. In the last years, hundreds of thousands of micro and small companies have started to advertise online through contextual advertising or pay per click programs like Google Adwords, Yahoo! or Microsoft AdCenter.

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Human Capital Management | 10 Things you Can Do to Lose your Best Employees

In the last posts I've been writing about people management in a knowledge based economy and how companies need to innovate in their people management policies in order to succeed. So let me tell you, in a more humorous manner, 10 things you can do if what you want is losing your best employees and collaborators and retaining the worst.

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September 21, 2006

Business innovation | Would you sell your company on eBay?

It only takes some imagination and an open-minded attitude to drive innovation to all industry sectors, even those we think are really stuck to traditional ways of doing things.

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September 4, 2006

Human Capital Management | Creating an organizational culture for the knowledge based company

Organizations that create teams of motivated and collaborating people, involved with the company's long term goals, are companies that have defined and developed a very concrete organizational culture and that, systematically, reinforce certain corporate values.

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August 31, 2006

Human Capital Management | Is your company prepared for work innovation?

In the last post I write about how organisations must change to face global competition in the knowledge economy. But the way we consider our job, the fact of working itself and the role of people in the companies and organizations is also changing radically.

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August 25, 2006

Human Capital Management | Are we really facing organisational change?

To understand how our organisation has to change in order to be effective in the current competitive environment, we have to understand the major transformations the global economy is facing due to the transition from the industrial economy to an information and knowledge based economy.

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August 18, 2006

Business innovation | Six priorities of innovative companies

I am currently conducting a research addressed to the Government of Catalonia through which we try to determine the public policies -with a long term perspective- that can enhance the creation of innovative start-ups, a key point for a country or region to compete in the global economy. The first question arises just at the beginning: what do we have to consider as an innovative company?.

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July 15, 2006

Human Capital Management | Corporate team building

There is that great idea, mainly defended by the big consulting and recruiting firms, that in an information and knowledge based economy, the most important thing for companies is attracting and retaining outstanding talented guys.

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July 11, 2006

Ecommerce business models | Start web business: low cost infrastructures

In two prior articles we talked about the come-back of Internet based business models - the so called dot com companies-, at least in the US. So far, we have pointed out two factors that would explain this situation: the spectacular increase in advertising revenues and the fact that almost everybody is already connected to the Internet and, increasingly, with broadband connections.

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July 6, 2006

Human Capital Management | Human resources

Days ago I received an advertising mail from an information and labor advising magazine, which main claim was “to obtain the best from your employees and to safeguard your rights as an entrepreneur”. Interesting I thought...

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June 30, 2006

Business process management | Business process management

Business processes that a company has developed overtime are one of the elements that configure the company's strategic resources. That's why innovation in business process management becomes one of the traditional areas where we can introduce innovation in our business model.

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June 12, 2006

Ecommerce business models | Reasons for dot-com come back: everybody is connected

Another difference between the possibilities of Internet and ecommerce business models at the end of 90's and today, is in the number of people who had an Internet connection at that time compared with those of nowadays.

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June 3, 2006

Ecommerce business models | Reasons for dot-com come back: online advertising takes off

One of the factors that explains the new era in dot-com companies is the spectacular growth in Internet advertising. In fact, the immaturity of Internet advertising market some years ago was the cause of many bankruptcies of business models that were based on it.

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Business models | Internet business models

It seems that, finally, the revolution of Internet is taking place, although, as some said years ago, in a quiet manner, without making noise, in a rational way, and making deep changes in the way to make things and in businesses.

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April 12, 2006

Strategic innovation | Strategic economies

We ended this article the analysis of the different elements that composen a business concept, putting attention to both last aspects that can multiply the capacity to generate benefit. First of them it is in if the model it has some of the denominated strategic economies, mainly economies of scale, capacity to concentrate themselves in a certain niche of market and to become leader or, the other way around, capacity to use resources such to serve to very different markets creating sinergias between all of them.

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Strategic innovation | Entry barriers

To have a barrier of entrance difficult to surpass on the part of the competitors is another one of the possible multipliers of benefits. If a company sends to the market a concept of really innovating business, is evident that during a period she will be the unique one in developing it.

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Strategic innovation | Capitalising client feedback

Another way to enter the dynamics of the increasing yields is similar to the one of the effect network that we commented in the previous article, but this is in the capacity that has a company to offer a better product as it increases his number of clients. He is the one that we can denominate positive effect of the feedback company-client.

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Strategic innovation | Increasing returns

One of the main multipliers of the benefits occurs if our model of business can enter a dynamics of increasing yields. This situation we found it when a company, as it grows, still has more possibilities of growth, and in addition to exponential form, since the fact to arrive at one first stage from expansion is the one that allows him to initiate one second phase of growth, that simultaneously will allow him to arrive at third and so on.

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Strategic innovation | Profit multipliers

Once analyzed three of the elements that cause that a business concept has capacity to generate wealth (efficiency, exclusive feature and coherence) we entered to analyze the fundamental element of this capacity. One is the multipliers of benefits that can cause that the yields go off dice in a while and, consequently, is worth the trouble to assume the risk of taking the concept ahead.

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Strategic innovation | Business concept coherence

The third element to value the capacity of generation of future wealth of a business concept, along with the efficiency and the capacity to be unique, is the degree of coherence of its internal elements (mission, vision, processes, reach of market, form to arrive at the objective public, etc.).

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Strategic innovation | Business concept exclusivity

The second element to value the capacity of generation of future wealth of a business concept (first it is the efficiency) is in the fact if the model he is unique or no. If it has discovered a new industry or a new market that had before not been explored. If it has developed a totally new form to arrive at the clients. If the execution of the model is totally innovating forehead to the traditional way to act.

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Strategic innovation | Business model efficiency

I today retake the analysis of the different elements that compose a concept of business and how we can introduce modifications that more innovators do. Within the group that makes reference to the capacity of generation of wealth of the model, we found like first element the efficiency of the model, is to say if by the product that we do our clients are arranged to pay, direct or indirectly, more money than the one than costs us to us to produce it.

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Business innovation | Inexperts to the power

With regard to the idea that it developed in the previous article with respect to which the greater innovations cause cabreada people because it has had a bad experience in the form to work of some product or service, yesterday explained a history to me that has much to do with it and that, lamentably, still is normality.

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Business innovation | Innovative ideas

There is an idea from Tom Peters which I find very interesting: the one of which often the people whom have innovative ideas are people who are very angry. Displeased people with a service, that thinks a new better or more efficient form to make it. Cabreada people because she does not find the product that needs and create it. People who find the institutionalized way absurd to make the things and change it.

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Entrepreneurship culture | Innnovation entrepreneurship

I close this reflection on (the in)cultura to undertake in our country with an aspect that, more than one more a leg of a social system oriented to the enterprising culture and the innovation, is the essential foundation. I believe that he was the present President of the Generalitat that said that three of their priorities of government were education, education and education.

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Entrepreneurship culture | Entrepreneurship culture: public venture capital

One fourth leg of a system that creates innovating companies must be, at least in Europe by its special idiosincracia, a sector of capital powerful public risk. However, the capital public risk would not be due to move such exactly by criteria that the capital deprived risk, as too many times it happens.

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Entrepreneurship culture | Innovation capital

In two previous articles I have spoken of (the in)cultura to undertake of two basic groups for the creation of innovating companies: those that must have the idea and the impulse to put it in march and those that would have to contribute at the first moments to finance these initiatives. Another one of the fundamental pillars of a system that creates companies is the one that we could say, generalizing, "capital deprived risk", that it would have to be constituted by the great financial groups and great local companies.

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Entrepreneurship culture | Business angels

The week last Dossier Económic echo was made of a study that states the slope in the enterprising initiative in our country. At the same time I initiated a series of articles on (the in)cultura to undertake in Catalunya. In fact he was totally accidental, because still it did not know the study, but I believe that which it wants to see escapes to him that the reality is very different from the official speech in which "we have columpiado ourselves" during the last years.

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Entrepreneurship culture | Innovation and entrepreneurship

It seems interesting to speak to me of the state of the emprenededora culture in our country, as a result of some conversations that recently I have had on this subject. They are anecdotal, but I believe that they reflect our general culture, beyond autobombo of the speeches of our politicians and other actors respect to this subject. And when I speak to undertake I do not speak to mount a bar, although also it is possible to be innovated in this field.

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Strategic innovation | Wealth generation

In the last articles we have been analyzing the different elements that compose a concept of business and how we can be refexionando on each one of them with the objective to introduce modifications that more innovators do as a whole. Even so, with this it does not have is enough.

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Strategic innovation | Strategic alliance

The last one of the elements that we will analyze within the concept of value network is the one of the alliances or coalitions of companies. Let us remember that all the elements of the value network (strategic suppliers, suppliers, partners and, finally, alliances) have quite diffuse conceptual limits and that often they are overlapped, depending on the situation specifies that we analyze.

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Strategic innovation | Partnering

Following in the scope of the value network, we found a concept in the last emergent years and that, sometimes, badly have been used. It is the concept of "partner". On the one hand, the line that separates the concept of strategic supplier of the one of a conception of "partner" is very thin.

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Strategic innovation | Value chain

Within the concept of value network the first element that we found is the one of the suppliers. From the way as we managed the relations with our suppliers can be derived innovating initiatives in our model of business. In fact, we could say that to define a strategy in this field it is a fundamental aspect for, like minimum, to cause that our present model continues being competitive.

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Strategic innovation | Innovation network

A fourth group of elements that form the business concepts is that that we could denominate like the "network of value" that turns around the company. The concept of value network talks about to all those necessary activities for the development of the business model, or are internal or external, but that are not made by the own structure of the company.

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Strategic innovation | Price structure

The structure of prices of our products and services offers to us, probably, one of the most interesting elements to introduce innovations in our model of business. This circumstance we have been seeing it of increasing form and in different sectors in the last years.

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Strategic innovation | Client relationship

The dynamics of relations that we establish with our clients is another one of the elements of the form how we interacted with them. Marketing goes less and less oriented to the specific transaction and more and more to maintain a relation continued and lasting with the clients, who allow us to maximize the operations that we will do with them throughout a period of expanded time.

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Strategic innovation | Knowledge about our clients

Several times I have commented the capital importance to have the maximum knowledge of our clients and potential clients. This it is a key element for the configuration of our form to interact with them and, therefore, of our concept of business.

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Strategic innovation | Innovation marketing

The form that we must to arrive at our clients and potential clients determines and forms one of the elements of our model of business. To analyze it to introduce changes that differentiate us from the other companies and they allow us to arrive from one more a more imaginative form and innovating to our market it can mean a great difference in the development of the business.

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Strategic innovation | Clients

In the last articles I have been describing and analyzing a model (based on the one of Hamel) of "deconstrucción" of the concepts of business in different elements, to be able to analyze them in depth and to introduce, in case that it is possible, scopes of innovation in each one of them.

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Strategic innovation | Process innovation

The last one of the elements that compose the strategic resources of the company is formed by the different basic processes that the company has developed with time. When we spoke of processes we are speaking of all those activities that take to that the company develops its business.

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Strategic innovation | Strategic assets

The strategic assets are that set of goods, tangible or intangible, which the company has been generating and which have become essential to develop a competitive advantage in their market. We would be speaking of real estate patrimony, machinery, patents, marks, know-how, data bases of information of clients, etc.

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Strategic innovation | Core competencies

There is a second group of aspects relative to the business concept that makes lack analyze with depth to establish if, through its involution or modification, we can develop a more innovating model. It is what we can denominate strategic resources of the company, that they include the core competencies, the strategic assets and the nuclear processes.

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Strategic innovation | Value proposition innovation

The third element that conforms the strategic nucleus of the business concept is related to the set of aspects that allow us to differentiate to us from our competitors. In this case, we would have to analyze deeply which is the proposal that makes the company to the market and, if it is it, in what is different from the rest of companies that attack the same market.

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Strategic innovation | Innovation in marketing

To analyze the reach of the product and the market, within the strategic nucleus of the business that already we defined, is the following passage in a process of introduction of innovations in the business concept. In this point which we must define it is at what types of market (objective public, geographic segments, scopes) we are arriving with our present products and what type of variations we could introduce to extend the market, to devise new uses, to arrive at different segments, or to sell other products to the traditional markets.

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Strategic innovation | Innovation strategy

The first group of aspects to analyze as far as the model of business of a company is the one that we could denominate strategic nucleus of the business. This nucleus comes determined by the mission from the business, the reach of the product that commercializes the company and from the market to which it serves, and the capacity of differentiation that allows him to compete with other companies in the same market.

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Strategic innovation | Business model innovation

Since or I have commented several times, I am of the opinion from which the greater innovations come normally associate to the shifts of concept or paradigm more than to new technologies, although these are a necessary instrument and often essential pair that can be produced the change of concept. In the case of the enterprise world, those would come from the changes in the concepts or models of business, since I have come analyzing in some scopes and sectors in the last articles.

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Business innovation | Blogs

Finalizing with the analysis of innovating models in the elaboration and publication of contents, we needed to analyze a way to spread information in Internet that has been increased of spectacular way in the last years. One is "blogs", is to say to ship's logs or personal newspapers

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Business innovation | Barriers to change

Before continuing with the analysis of innovating models in the elaboration of contents, today I will explain an anecdote that has spent me this week and that is very reveledora of the mental difficulties that exist at the time of developing new models and to break inertias, schemes and the prevailing forms of operation.

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Business innovation | Content management and publishing

Other innovating models in the philosophy of management and publication of contents are those portals or virtual communities in which the publication of articles and works is free and does not happen through any previous process of "qualitative" filtering of publications, but that are such readers those who are filtering the quality of the authors, who are created a name and a seal of quality based on which they publish.

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Business innovation | Content creation

In the previous article it spoke of which still they defend that the good contents only can be made by "experts" recognized "officially" and filtered qualitatively by other "experts" of the place where they are published. And they reject the credibility of the contents that do not pass this process of supposed quality and, therefore, consider that the new publication models more, to say it somehow, "democratic" (participativas encyclopedias, free publication vestibules, blogs, etc.) they are, to per, of less quality.

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Business innovation | Wikipedia

He is peculiar that when a change of model or paradigm appears, by small that is, quickly rises to a chorale of voices describing all the hypothetical disadvantages and catastrophes that can be derived from this new conception in the way to make certain thing. Not very often the status quo established recognizes the advantages of the new model or the deficiencies of the old one. In general, an aversion to the change exists, that is one of the main barriers to the innovation.

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Business innovation | New encyclopedias

Relating the culture of the innovation and the creativity - that there am be analyzing articles with Internet in the last, we can observe that in the last years a series of projects has been implemented that have like reference a total change of the traditional model to make a certain activity. Today I will speak of a project that has transformed the traditional vision completely to elaborate an encyclopedia.

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Innovation culture | Strategic innovation

I today finish to this series of reflections introductorias on the culture of the innovation and on what it is necessary to make in our country to develop it suitably. And I end up again affecting an aspect that seems that it costs to understand and to assume, and that for me it is fundamental. One is a very simple and obvious subject: the innovation makes the people and, therefore, any strategy that goes directed to foment the innovation in our economy must have like first and basic objective to inculcar this culture in the people who compose the society. Strategic innovation is a key factor for the competitiveness in the knowledge economy.

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Innovation culture | Talent, technology and tolerance

In the last years one has reached the conclusion that creating the suitable surroundings to stimulate the creativity and the innovation it depends on diverse factors. In this sense, different models have seted out in which some of these factors have been analyzed.

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Innovation culture | Innovative environments

How they are the surroundings in which the creative and innovating people bloom? Which are the mechanisms that cause that in a certain region innovating companies settle and new companies are created. These are the great questions that they want to solve all those that is dedicated to the economic promotion of the cities, regions or countries that they want to have some paper in the economy of the information and the knowledge.

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Innovation culture | Innovation and creativity

It in the last said article that stops to have an innovating economy makes lack that is an increasing number of creative people, innovating and enterprising. It is that social group that Flowery Richard denominates "creative class" in his work "The rise of the Creative Class" (BASIC Books, New York, 2002) and that would have to be the dominant group in the societies totally integrated in the economy of the information and the knowledge.

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April 11, 2006

Innovation culture | Innovators

One of the bases to have innovating companies and organizations is that there are innovating people. It seems a obviedad, but everybody innovating speech of the necessity to have innovating companies, sectors, an innovating economy... But, and the people. After all the organizations are compound of people, are people.

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Innovation culture | Our society penalizes the failure

One of the risks of making decisions, to innovate, to explore new lands and forms to make different from the traditional ones is, evidently, to be mistaken. For that reason, he is very complicated to implant a culture of the innovation in a society and companies where to be mistaken, to be mistaken, it is very bad sight and penalized

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Innovation culture | Creativity and innovation

From good small we are put under guidelines of certain socialization and learning. Family, school and society are to us adapting to what she is established, what it is product of previous the general experience or determined circumstances, that surely they occurred in the past.

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Management of innovation | Types of innovation

Beyond which the innovation can come from different scopes (concepts of business, forms of organization, etc.) and not only of products and services, or the technology and the I+D, we can classify the enterprise innovations in two blocks totally differentiated: the incrementales and the radicals

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Innovation culture | What is innovation

When speech of enterprise innovation, much people (practically everybody) quickly associates to technology or investigation and development. We thought about great scientific inestigaciones (biotechnology, genomic...), with new spectacular technologies (nanotecnología...) or in ingenious inventions.

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Innovation culture | The innovation, really

With this article beginning a series reflections about the culture of the innovation in our country, subject of the permanent present time lately. The existence or not of a certain culture of the innovation - specially in the small and medium companies very it is bound, for example, at that these companies get to develop or innovating nonstrategies of marketing and marketing in Internet.

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Business innovation | Industries in transformation: the world of the perfume

In order to close this first series of mini-analysis of sectors that are in the heat of transformation (we will make more in the future, since the list is long and it will be extended) thanks to Internet and the TIC, today I would like to comment the case of a market that, although still is not in transformation, it could be in a moment.

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Business innovation | Industries in transformation: travel agencies

Days ago it read that, like result of the slope of the commissions that had applied the airline companies to them, the travel agencies arranged themselves to raise their clients the tariffs that receive to them in the airplane ticket emission. Excellent measurement, yes Sir.

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March 26, 2006

Business innovation | Service innovation

In the previous article I wrote about the so called "low cost" airline companies and my opinion they would better start giving up this denomination and starting to differentiate themselves by other aspects, as very soon all companies will be "low cost". It is very interesting to observe as the change of paradigm in the airline industry business model has also opened other market opportunities for service innovation which some companies are taking advantage.

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Business innovation | Innovation and change

I am writing this article at the airport, waiting for boarding in a flight to London in one of the so called "low cost" companies. And that makes me think about how difficult it is to change our mentality, about the power of inertia, the main enemy of innovation. And inertia often is reflected in a vehicle that can last for years before it changes: language.

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November 5, 2005

Business innovation | Innovation industries: printing

Another of the industries facing a transformation and business innovation thanks to Internet is printing (attention SMES of this sector). I will explain a personal experience that reflects the future (already the present) of this industry.

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Business innovation | Innovation industry: book publishing and selling

I have already commented several times that one of the consequences of the use of Internet and the TIC is the transformation of many industries' value chain. Often, this transformation takes place to make them more efficient and transparent. In other ocassions, to establish new direct channels of distribution. Very few times, but increasingly, to radically innovate the industry business model.

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September 6, 2005

Innovation culture | Do we innovate?

Some weeks ago I attended a Conference organized by the European E-business Support Network, an European network of organizations that support and try to introduce innovation and the development of ebusiness in the small and medium European companies, as a tool for competitiveness.

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About the Author

Francesc Llobet is an Internet entrepreneur and a strategy business consultant in the fields of innovation, internet marketing and ebusiness.
Based in Barcelona, Catalonia (European Union), he is the founder of Sappiens.com, The Knowledge Community and Founder and CEO of Adverstore.com, Advertising for everyOne!. He maintains InnovationThink, eMarketingThink OnlineAdvertisingThink and A Startup Story, blogs where he writes on Innovation, Internet Marketing, Advertising and Startups. To know more...

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