10 Important takeaways from this lecture:

00:00:55 Long-term strategy. What is of key importance for your organization: Research & Development? Marketing? Sales? What are your strategic priorities: Innovation? Brand? Price? Design? Quality? Other?

[EDITOR’S NOTE: For more on branding strategy, refer to my interviews with Damien Sterbecq, Ivan Pejcic, and Thomas Palugan]

00:02:45 Resources are limited. Therefore strategy means being focused and  saying no. You cannot be the leader in everything: Innovation, Brand, Price, Quality, Other.

00:03:50 As an brand, what is of highest importance for you so that you will still exist in 5-10 years. Your strategy is your answer. In the long run, Innovation and then Brand – people know you, like you, and have very clear associations with your name, logo (Specific) – will win out over Price (Generic).

[EDITOR’S NOTE: To learn more about the perils of launching a company, watch my lecture 25 reasons startups fail within 4 years at Sup De Pub.]

00:06:40 How you define your brand’s strategy requires certain competencies. If your company’s mission is to offer ‘the best possible quality at the lowest possible price,’ what does that mean for your employees? That they have to be friendly and polite, efficient, well-informed, able to cope with demanding your clients. Very simple competencies.

00:17: 44 What is your brand strategy? What does that mean for your employees? How do you attract those kinds of employees necessary to relay your brand strategy?

00:19:20 If your business strategy is to grow and expand to follow your customers, then your employees will have to be capable of working globally. This involves more than simply being able to speak the language.

00:20:40 Core Management Functions: Product Management, R&D, Production Planning, Production/Engineering, Marketing, Sales/Key Account Management, and Service/Support

00:23:36 Of these functions above, what is the most important function? R&D because if they don’t do well, you cannot be innovative and competitive. But even with the best product, without marketing you will lose. And without salesmen and customer service there would be no way to sell the product you’re marketing. And without production there would be no way to make your product. Production is where value is actually created.

Ultimately, your brand strategy determines which of these functions are of high strategic relevance, and which of these functions is of lower strategic importance. From the HR perspective, this determines where you must hire excellent people, and where you can hire good people.

00:40:20 Non-critical functions of low-strategic importance which are relatively easy to fill and for which there is a large candidate pool don’t require much investment in recruitment – take out an ad in the newspaper or online or post a sign on your front door.

Critical functions of high-strategic importance which are very difficult to fill and for which there isn’t a large candidate pool require much more investment.

00:50:00  Some companies, using supply chain management, can tell you precisely how many 30mm screws they have on stock, but struggle in telling you precisely how many employees they have working for them.