Property Talk

Author: Andreas Wassenaar
Date: 2013-12-06

What are the two most important attributes of any business of any size? What are those things that set a successful business apart from the "also ran" crowd? I would suggest to you that these two critical success factors, without which any organization is doomed to failure, are Innovation and Marketing.

Get these two pillars right and your business will grow exponentially. Get them wrong and it will be hard to survive over the long term. Those that I work with know that I am an Apple fan.

From my iPhone, to iPod, to iPad and MacBook Pro the beauty of these products are evident and it is clear that there is no substitute for design genius and production quality.

Apple is regarded globally as one of the world's most innovative companies with its marketing genius acknowledged by all, including its fiercest competitors. People do not merely buy Apple products; they fall in love with them.

The cult-like following inspires thousands of people to queue outside Apple concept retail stores overnight in anticipation of a new product release. They happily pay a premium for an Apple product.

All this made Apple the most valuable company in the world. So if Apple is the most admired company, who is the leading management thinker of our time today? There is an organization called the Thinkers50, which describes its awards as the Oscars of management thinking. Every two years it assesses and ranks living management thinkers.

In seven editions only four people have ever topped the list. These have been management gurus Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, CK Prahalad and for the past two award years, the man now regarded as the absolute leader in this field, Clay Christensen. He is currently a professor at the Harvard Business School and regarded as the father of disruptive thinking.

He has written nine management books, including The Innovator's Dilemma, which is regarded as one of the five best business books ever written. His latest book, "How will you measure your life" is regarded by some as possibly more influential that Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled.

So does a relatively small estate agency on the KZN North Coast consider that the world's leading management thinker can provide useful insights into the world we live and work in every day. My firm belief is yes, it can. People are people - they are similar where ever you may go. People run businesses and the application of a way of thinking to any given set of challenges or opportunities can create profitable outcomes.

I have witnessed this disruptive innovation described by Christensen in our property industry over the past five years. The innovation came through one architect who had the genius to think well outside the adopted framework that had been ingrained in the decade prior to his arrival.

A single development company had the foresight to nurture and channel the creative energy into a range of innovative home designs that simply blew the customers away.

Innovative design and the use of new incredible materials were combined with a more sophisticated level of marketing new homes. This immediately elevated the company above its peers. Within a few years they had cornered the market in new builds and began to dominate while other architects and builders could barely make ends meet.

Innovation is quickly copied by competitors (at least the smart ones), which is why continuous improvement then becomes a requirement. If a small development company and single architect on the north coast could do this, there is no reason your business can't do the same.

For further information and an interactive analysis of this article follow my blog: andreaswassenaar.blogspot.com.

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