Category: Business Models

Business Models

The Ambassador from the Next Economy

Colin Henderson

Courtesy of Laurent, a remarkable bio on Joi Ito, whose role at age 39 is difficult to define.  He is something of a venture capitalist, yet he doesn’t seek money.  He is interested only in furthering the right tools to move the Internet economy and philosophy ahead.  In this milieu, Mr. Ito, at age 39, has become one of the most visible global defenders of the idea that commerce and community can be designed to mutually reinforce each other. He argues that the great businesses of the Internet will not be those that stream canned video or data, but those that bring people together … Continue reading The Ambassador from the Next Economy

Business Models

Designing for concentric circles of adoption

Colin Henderson

 Chris follows up on Tara’s post on understanding your target audience, that I covered here.  Chris goes to the next level, after understanding your audience, and suggests that becoming a member of your community is the first step.  This makes sense and is understanding your customer 101. The Pinko approach demands that you become a member of your community to truly understand their needs and the world from their perspective. Source: Designing for concentric circles of adoption at FactoryCity  He goes on to outline the best approach of community engagement of like minded people, who will help to carry the … Continue reading Designing for concentric circles of adoption

Business Models, Pinkomarketing

Trust the personal experience; recognise the corporate ‘adverblog’

Colin Henderson

Andy nicely describes the biggest threat to blogging. As corporations and bloggers seek to ‘monetise’ blogging, they not only miss the point, they actually threaten to kill the very environment they are trying to leverage. Well at least this takes something that has been happening over the last year into the open. Web Services company Marqui seems to have been one of the first to make a commercial move when last year it offer 20 Bloggers $2400 each to post some thing positive about Marqui once a week for three months. This was followed by Payperpost.com a fully commercial service, … Continue reading Trust the personal experience; recognise the corporate ‘adverblog’

Business Models

P2P lending: Cut out the middleman?

Colin Henderson

The always excellent Deutsche Bank Research (when will they get an RSS feed!) produces a nice summary financial2-0.pdf of the issues in P2P lending, and the industry leaders, Prosper and Zopa. Review of the issues here at BankerVision, where the debate is whether P2P lending will create new markets, or cannibalise existing ones. James also refers to an interesting point of view that P2P will merely encourage Banks to become more efficient and eliminate waste in their processes. Nice thought, but the counter internally will always be a combination of inertia, and risk management. My position would be that Bank’s … Continue reading P2P lending: Cut out the middleman?

Business Models

Update: RBC Financial Group new social network site

Colin Henderson

The site is design to launch a competition amongst student teams, to answer this question. How will today’s teens influence the financial services industry in Canada?  Describe an innovation, idea or concept that financial services should consider in light of this. Some of the challenges they suggest can be addressed in the presentation entry, are as follows: Trends – What defines today’s teens?  Consider impact and/or use of technology, social networks, loyalty and trust, globalization, demographics, education, urbanization, cultural diversity, etc. Customers – As today’s teens progress through various life stages, what influence will they have on their own demographic … Continue reading Update: RBC Financial Group new social network site

Business Models2 Comments

Digital Identity: The chat room paradox

Colin Henderson

 Dave summarises well the latest thinking on identity and disclosure issues that Internet has made imperative.  This opening paragraph summarises the problem. Your kids want to go in a chatroom and you will only let them go into the chatroom if you know (in principle) who everyone else in the chatroom is, but you won’t let them go into the chatroom if they have to disclose who they are. So in an “open space”, you want to everyone else to disclose their identity but keep yours secret, just in case of one the other people who has disclosed their identity … Continue reading Digital Identity: The chat room paradox

Business Models

Do Banks have a sustainable business model?

Colin Henderson

 This is a great high level summary of why banks make money.  The metaphor of a moat is used to describe how Banks can control their marketspace, and exclude interlopers.  The question becomes, whether the moat can be crossed, or avoided.  …  nearly all banks have a sustainable competitive advantage–an economic moat. Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger were surprised, too. Buffett once remarked, “Charlie and I have been surprised at how much profitability banks have, given that it seems like a commodity business. To review some fundamentals, an economic moat represents a company’s ability to earn returns above its cost … Continue reading Do Banks have a sustainable business model?

Business Models, Ranking

Canadian Banks & Insurance: Canadian online brokers ranking belies their success

Colin Henderson

The Canadian online brokerage industry lives under the shadow of the Globe and Mail rankings, to a far greater extent than the Banks worried about the old Gomez online banking surveys.  I believe those surveys, while useful indicators, can result in dysfunctional investment, and all the while the customer is lost. Consider the facts: Globe & Mail Market Share Qtrade TD ETrade RBC Credential BMO InvestorLine           The surveys are useful indicators, but they drive Banks and Brokers into a functionality race, so customer and community engagement is lost. ” No. 1 / Qtrade Investor / … Continue reading Canadian Banks & Insurance: Canadian online brokers ranking belies their success

Business Models, Pinkomarketing2 Comments

::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon: BayCHI Presentation – Notes

Colin Henderson

Tara continues to explore new marketing, and the principles that underpin it. Stop all outgoing messages. Concentrate on ways to listen better. Open up the channels to incoming. You can’t listen if you are yelling. Be a community evangelist. It’s not about ‘creating customer evangelists’, it’s about advocating for your community. This is why it is important to have at least one person in-house that is focused on listening to the community. Even better is if everyone in-house is doing this. When developers and CEO’s get busy, it is increasingly more important to listen to the community advocate. Drop the … Continue reading ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon: BayCHI Presentation – Notes

Business Models, Innovation, Web/Tech1 Comment

Simplifying the business model

Colin Henderson

Interesting paper from IBM Global Services, designed to solve a problem many big banks suffer from.  They have overly complex systems, that are inflexible, and seemingly impossible to get operating efficiently and effectively. One symptom is well captured here, and I personally recognize this one. Many transformation failures where projected  benefits were not realized or costs spiraled are due  to large scale multi-year programs which are difficult to manage. In such programs it is often difficult to maintain focus on vision, costs, benefits and end solution. Additionally, the end solution may not be relevant should the business environment change. In … Continue reading Simplifying the business model