20:20 Vision

 

Preamble
This page presents brief details of books planned for publication by Colin Edward Egan during 2020 and 2021. They are presented in the order they are likely to be published.

 

Colin Edward Egan (forthcoming)
The Ascent of Marketing & Innovation: Strategies for Profitable Growth

In recent years the pressures for firms to innovate have grown tremendously. As markets develop over time the combination of sophisticated demand and intense rivalry forces companies to strive ever harder just to keep pace with competitive dynamics. They do this in a broad range of ways, consistently seeking product and process breakthroughs to build or maintain a competitive advantage.

In this book, we examine the broad range of marketing issues which are bringing innovation to the top of the boardroom agenda for many firms. In a competitive marketplace, the importance of innovation cannot be overstated in an environment where ‘the survival of the fittest’ is the watchword for business success. The following quote from Professor Peter Drucker, the doyen of management gurus, illustrates the vital role of marketing and innovation in the contemporary business environment:

Because its purpose is to create a customer, a business has two – and only two – functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are ‘costs’.

A crucial point to make here relates to the distinction which must be made between invention and innovation. Invention is the creation of an idea and is typically associated with technology breakthroughs. Innovation is the commercialization of ideas and embraces creativity in all elements of the marketing mix: everything provides scope for differentiation if an appropriate market-driven outlook is adopted.

While invention is often more interesting for research scientists in R&D departments, the compelling evidence is that innovation strategies tend to be more profitable!

Having noted this, it must be emphasized that a strong creative process and organizational responsiveness are essential to secure innovation success. As we demonstrate, the trick is to innovate for first-mover advantage, a process which combines speed to market and an ability to build entry barriers as the market develops and becomes more attractive to follower companies.

The following blog entries from The Global Business Strategy Album provide a ‘flavour’ of the principal themes of this book (navigate to the companion website www.outsidefortresseurope.eu to view this compilation album of peer-reviewed essays and blog posts derived from Outside Fortress Europe: Strategies for the Global Market. The site will open in a new tab/window).

 

Millennials are so passé. And irrelevant for global marketing strategy design
Brand | Global Strategic Management | Marketing

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From ‘branding’ cattle to ‘digital influencers’: A brief history of global brand management
Brand | Global Strategic Management | Marketing

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Colin Edward Egan (forthcoming)
The Gutenberg Disruptor: How Disruptive Processes Transform Buyer Behaviour & Business Models

Daily financial news media abound with items relating to ‘disruptive technologies’ and ‘novel business models’, in the process exciting investors and frightening company executives in equal measure. Whether based on hi-tech, AI, or new routes to market, a fundamental marketing ‘fact-of-life’ is universally overlooked:  customer preference, power and choice drive these economic processes.

Buyer behaviour – the ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ decisions which explain consumers’ purchasing activities and motivations –  is key to understanding emerging patterns of supply and demand.

In this book we explore these themes, providing many practical examples from both sides of this market exchange equation. In the process, we describe how a new and disruptive approach to publishing created all the books presented on the British Business Manifesto and SME & SBU Business Strategy pages.

The following blog entries from The Global Business Strategy Album (see reference above) provide a ‘flavour’ of the principal themes of The Gutenberg Disruptor…

 

Disruptive business processes & ‘tipping points’: Customer preference is sovereign!
Global Strategic Management | Innovation | Marketing

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What would Steve say? Has Apple become a follower, not a pioneer?
Brand | Innovation | International Business | Marketing

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Colin Edward Egan (forthcoming)
Communomics

In the late spring of 1989 more than 300,000 student protestors marched towards Tiananmen Square, agitating for political freedoms to match the hugely successful economic reforms in China throughout that decade. The protestors’ dreams were literally crushed and some political scientists were claiming ‘The End of History’, the subtext for the triumph of capitalism and its associated societal framework, liberal democracy. The imminent collapse of the USSR and the uber-symbolic and very real fall of the Berlin Wall amplified this belief.

 

The atrocities committed in Tiananmen Square and the broader discussions relating to human rights, democracy and dissent, liberal versus conservative, old versus young and related controversies are beyond the scope of this book but are central to its context. Capital had flowed to China from Western firms in anticipation of bumper rewards, which is what capital does. Billions had been invested but asset repatriation, expropriation and nationalisation have plagued Foreign Direct Investment in the past, especially in countries rich in resources (land, labour, capital) but opaque in political governance.

After Tiananmen, there was a deep breath taken and held by companies who waited to see how the dice would roll: what had widely been seen as a safe bet now had the nasty taste of a highly speculative punt. The capitalists needn’t have worried, as the world has witnessed. But what about the usurpation of wealth and power by elites so strongly associated with a social system masquerading as communism which George Orwell so presciently predicted in his thinly veiled critique of ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin’s Russia in his 1945 satire, Animal Farm? The most memorable (and frequently quoted) line from this novella is “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.

The inequality alluded to in this sentence has been widely interpreted as a cause for the demise of communism, but this is fundamentally flawed for two key reasons:

    1. It assumes that communism has failed which, as we demonstrate in this book, as a political system it continues to thrive in a nation of 1,415,000,000 souls in China; add to this 93,000,000 in Vietnam, 25,000,000 in North Korea, 12,000,000 in Cuba and more.
    2. It assumes that capitalism delivers equality in wealth which, as French economist Thomas Piketty has demonstrated in his extremely thought-provoking and successful book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, this is patently not the case, the only surprise is that, in contrast to what Marx had predicted, the huge inequalities in wealth which capitalism has created hasn’t attracted any significant, sustained, beyond-state rebellious reaction.

From this perspective, the capitalist nation-state has survived and prospered. What has triumphed above all else is market economics in the context of globalisation and it is this which provides the content for much of what features in Communomics. Our aim is to explain, not judge. From Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Mao, Deng, Gorbachev, Thatcher, Reagan and Zi, from pin factories to rejuvenated silk roads, we explore the philosophies, dramas and perspectives on political economy which have shaped our modern world. And our conclusion?

Capitalism versus Communism?: The Perfect Storm

Spoiler alert: Capitalism versus Communism: Half time.

 

The following blog entry from The Global Business Strategy Album (see reference above) provides a ‘flavour’ of the principal themes of this book:

A tale of two Chinas: how did it happen and what happens next?
Global Strategic Management | International Business

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The following essay does not feature on The Global Business Strategy Album. It is compiled from two extracts from Outside Fortress Europe: Strategies for the Global Market

Ich Bin Ein Berliner! And the fall of the wall
Global Strategic Management | International Business

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All content © Colin Edward Egan, 2020