This week Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13 billion.  Whole foods is an established premium brand that promotes nutritious foods to its consumers. Whole Foods brand identity saved them from one of Amazon's tactics which could have left them in the dark and cannibalized by Amazon. One tactic Amazon employs is to carry products from company's on their site and then learn the … [Read more...] about How Brand Identity Saved Whole Foods!

As companies and organizations move towards continuous process improvement in order to be in line with Six Sigma doctrine, they are discovering that conflicts exist when implementing innovations to their products and services1. Culture clashes between Six Sigma and innovation can become disruptive to an organization "given the different change management implications inherent … [Read more...] about Competing Interest between Six Sigma and Innovation

  Analytics is here to stay! As analytics continues to evolve and the analysis of data leads to more efficiencies people will need to stay abreast of the effects analytics create. For example, let’s take the air conditioning unit at my home. If my air conditioner was monitored and prescribed maintenance in accordance to information captured and transmitted through the … [Read more...] about Is the Evolution of Analytics Leading to Less Job Opportunities?

As marketers and IT professionals strive to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace through the development of mobile applications for its consumer, hackers continue to work behind the scene to exploit sensitive organizational and consumer data. Today, WikiLeaks released information which identified how the CIA gained access through vulnerable mobile applications in … [Read more...] about MOBILE APPS: A Hackers Gateway to Paradise

I hear this phrase too often! As a buyer of IT systems for the federal government I come across a lot of questions like: Can we make this new system or application integrate with our older system we’ve already paid for? Would it be cheaper just to purchase an entirely new system and just take the loss of the old system that we have invested in? Should we purchase and … [Read more...] about You Want Me to Do What?