Versatile Amphibian

I'm on a bit of a journey right now, the objective of which is to systematise my process for devising strategic concepts to suit all of the situations my clients find them in. To that end, I'm going to share one of the ideas in the book : that we can classify concepts using a matrix of purpose/ intent against nature of response. Like so: Purpose (or intent) is the principal axis of this matrix because it articulates the sentiment behind the organisation’s goals Defensive purpose is most common in that it represents a defence of the oligarchy in order to continue to extract increasing profits from falling utility Offensive purpose is more attractive but also riskier because it represents the taking of value from other sources in the economy through acquisition or aggressive entry into other geographic markets In both purposes one can choose to be orthodox (as stated in the above examples) or unorthodox; for example: To defend by extending ubiquity and thus...

I had an interesting (and informal) chat with the VP Sales of a large film distributor yesterday, whose responsibilities cover monetisation of content rights post-theatre. We covered many subjects, but he seemed most concerned by the ongoing decline in the DVD market; where revenues are falling due to lack of demand, BluRay is failing to prop up the market and the industry appears to be suffering from a lack of vision, similar to that which has led to the gross destruction of value in the music rights business. This is a classic strategic problem and one which cannot be solved simply. I am not, in case it was unclear, an advocate of the cognitive school of strategy! Instead, I thought it'd be fun to lay out how I'd use a hypothesis-based approach to seek and select options for turning around the post-theatre film monetisation business. To start with, I see four broad value models in this business: "buy-to-own" sales of DVDs; "pay-per-view" either through vid...