How to Create A Successful SaaS Strategy & Pricing Model

by Richard Gourlaystart-up advice 27/08/202101/09/2025No Comments

SaaS Strategy: Where are we now?

Back in 2012, I wrote an article (on this blog) about the potential future of business in the internet age, called The Internet Tsunami. Back in 2012 as we emerged from the infancy of the internet I stated that the internet would become a major business channel for all business sectors not just music and insurance. It was no longer a passing fad. Back in late 1990’s we saw the internet emerge from having been a research tool to something which people could experience through to the dot.com boom of the early 2000’s when money flooded in to this emerging market but the infrastructure and customer engagement platforms were not ready preventing online becoming more than a side show for businesses. So here is how to create a successful SaaS strategy and pricing model for your SaaS business in 2021.

After the financial crisis of 2007/8 as the economic bounce-back accelerated change in the economy opening the door to the internet age and it began to take shape. My article in March 2012 suggested that what we were seeing the beginnings of the permanent change across all sectors and markets, it was not just Amazon replacing CD music shopping, but that the world was going to change. So lets look at how to create a successful SaaS strategy and pricing model

The SaaS Tipping Point

Now that the technology tipping point has occurred and it has become the dominant global force in driving consumer behaviour. This paradigm shift is when markets move in response to macro factor drivers. For companies going too early with any trend can lead them to commit in concrete to a technology which leaves them left behind as the internet evolves for example Friends Reunited: provided no interaction and on-going relationship creation, as Facebook found is what makes a successful online social media platform.

Go too late, and you miss the market shift and find you have been left behind with disastrous consequences. Comet sold electrical white goods and collapsed with over 20% of the UK market share through its 200 stores, but refused to see the move online for these goods by younger consumers, while Amazon at the time had already achieved 8% of the white goods market with no physical shops.

If you can see a trend you have already missed it. Once the tipping point in a sector then you are playing catch-up. So over the last 9 years the internet has not just become another channel to market for many goods, it has become the dominant channel for many sectors most noticeably in retail, but is now almost ubiquitous, impacting upon every market.

The ability to take products and services online is now in full force with organisations inventing themselves, reinventing themselves as online (SaaS) business models. For many this is a result of a number of key factors, not least is about keeping up with your customers and the competition. But, other key factors such as the reduction in cost of developing online services, as well as the ability to upgrade services quickly in response to rapidly changing or evolving customer demands are other positive drivers of moving online.

Shifting to a SaaS Business Model

Making the shift to go to a SaaS solution is a strategic one, it should be based upon a clear strategic assessment of the market and customer needs and carefully planned out in a detailed business plan. SaaS is not just moving your products online, going digital. That is an important step but moving to a SaaS solution model it is completely new way of thinking about you deliver, to whom and how.

SaaS solutions start by working out what the future will look like and if you can do more online than as you are today. From that strategic assessment if SaaS solution is the way of delivering real underlying value to your future (and current) customers then you need to develop your Minimum Product Viability model to move your business into the SaaS world. Click here to learn more about how to set up a Minimum Product Viability (MPV) by clicking this link here.

Software As A Service – SaaS Solution

Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions are now common across all sectors replacing manually made service offerings. For many businesses replacing, upgrading and being able to compete within their sector requires companies to move to SaaS offerings. Either bespoke designed SaaS from scratch using in-house or outsourced technicians or tailored from white label sector providers. Offering a SaaS solution to a market is not just a shift change in what an organisation offers but a whole new way of thinking.

First: Create A Successful SaaS Strategy

SaaS though is more than just simple a move online. It requires a different way of thinking from traditional models. The changing nature of customer engagement, moves from the physical meeting to the online engagement, that requires companies to think and act differently. The nature of the service also changes as it becomes totally arms length customer centric. Customers choose when and what they want to use of the service (for example over 2,700 UK people did their tax returns on Christmas day in 2019, with over 30,000 doing them over the Christmas holiday period in 2019), this requires companies to resource supporting users when they need it not when you are open.

Business to consumer SaaS models need to support consumers with planned engagement and support channels as well as developing SaaS loyalty strategies in place to retain and develop customer segments. For B2B SaaS models working across partner channels puts a set of different requirements in place in accessing target audiences through integrated service offerings through integrated software .

SaaS behaviours also require business to measure very different metrics to be successful, many of which are new to companies not used to SaaS solutions, but if you do not measure them SaaS will fail to deliver the results you expect. Here are some of the key areas for SaaS businesses to monitor and drive decision making from.

SaaS Solutions: Being a Disrupter

Disrupting any market requires your SaaS offering to target and penetrate precise target segments and disrupt the existing market. Focus on measuring the disruption your new offering is causing. Are you reaching your core target audience with your new offering and taking customers from the competition, or protecting your vulnerable customers with you new offering. Disruption is about changing people’s perception and behaviour patterns. So it is important to measure the existing behaviours and their new behaviours using the SaaS solution.

Just shifting your existing customers online maybe a strong defensive strategy if your are the last to move into SaaS, but that is not a disrupter. To disrupt a market you have to do something which changes the game. Changes the structure, the dynamics and the value proposition within the target audience.

SaaS solutions MUST do MORE than just Match Your Off line Offering

SaaS solution need to offer more to customers within their sector. Providing a genuine value-added solution must be designed and built into the SaaS solution. Either at the start or as a planned upgrading rollout plan. If your Minimum Product Viability (MPV) assessment provides compelling evidence of the potential to move online, just migrating offline to online business activities will not succeed. SaaS businesses must find, connect and engage with customers in a completely different way than their offline equivalents, even if they are the same customer base being migrated across by the company. That customer experience must reflect the culture and value which the audiences has and wants to experience for it to be successful. SO SaaS businesses must actively drive engagement, create direct and indirect communities, offer advice and support and actively monitor audience segments value experiences to enable SaaS to add real value to target segments.

Building more into a SaaS solution can be undertaken at low (or no cost) if planned in at the design stage. `Good forward thinking strategically thought out SaaS solutions can design in actual and anticipated customer needs at low or no cost. Building into the SaaS platform forward evolution so that they can evolve in response to customer evolving and emerging demand, overcome competition short-term and long-term responses and to life-time evolution needs.

Being able to add in and evolve a SaaS solution to a complete solution is essential so it offers a complete long-term solution, not just a quick fix. That requires several micro launches, (evolutions) to meet theses needs and to enable the SaaS solution to add more value (value proposition).

Measuring why, where and who is using the site for what as well as forums and associated features will tell you the full value you could, should and must offer. Often support functions such as help desks, brochures, technical information, upgrading options and associated activities are always areas where doing more can be seen, but only if you measure them! What about training and certification of users and channel partners, and the whole range of other activities which these intranet offerings can also provide?

SaaS Success: Target the Right Segments.

Moving to SaaS is not a straight line. Build it and then just sit back and watch customers come onboard, is how SaaS is sold to CEO’s in shifting their business to a SaaS solution. But that is not how SaaS adoption works. Adoption curves matter. So identifying who, why and when segments will move over to a SaaS offering is vital for success. Being able to anticipate and plan around customer acquisition by customer target segment must be planned out and executed in dissectible phases.

One major challenge is that the key drivers of a SaaS solution within an organisation may well come from specific user segment(s) within an organisation. Identifying the pain points within a target audience is therefore vital. Who will adopt your technology when is an important element in designing your market entry strategy.

Saas Adoption Curve Modelling

Who are the core target segments that SaaS solution should be targeted at? This central question is often lost in the generic answer everyone! But it is not. SaaS solutions must add value to everyone, but they must be focused on converting target businesses strategic target audience. That focus must be at the heart of the SaaS solution design and implementation, if you win more great but your focus is to move the brand’s customer base.

For success SaaS solution moves the brand’s position, its profitability and its performance by acquiring new higher value customers. Higher value customers in both B2B and B2C environments for mainstream players are usually found higher up the adoption stream. So laggards find growth in volume and value in the late majority (see below for market adoption curve and total market size modelling). Late majority players can already win downstream laggards but need to expand by either growing with their sector or by moving into early majority customer segments, and likewise early majority customers look at high value (but smaller total volume) early adopters.

Adoption Curve and Total Market Volume by Segment for SaaS Solution Development — Adoption Curve and Total Market Segmentation

The key measurements here are to identify the precise target segments you intend to win, and measure that as your metrics of success. Do not just measure total customers as this can inflate your SaaS success. While measuring total numbers always looks good. It may not be profitable growth and can often lead to SaaS platforms being pulled into chasing total numbers not focusing on developing profitable long-term customers. This is typically seen when a new SaaS platform has to buy its customer growth, so people see the growth as success, but it can be burning through their cash reserves as they have focused on the wrong metrics.

Profitable target customers support growth of a SaaS solution. This must be measured to see if the strategic goal is being achieved.

SaaS Strategic Pricing Models

For a SaaS business to succeed it needs to get its pricing right, there is no bigger strategic decision to take. There are several ways to price your SaaS solution which we can break down into 6 key models and a couple of common variants. Choosing your pricing model will reflect the market you are in, your strategic business objective, the nature of the solution you’re providing and the designed rollout of your SaaS value proposition solution you are offering.

1. SaaS Flat Rate Pricing

The most common and simple, often replacing a previous non-SaaS solution. It is simple and effective, easy to use price to incentives by allowing target audiences to compare the value proposition. The difficulty in this model is that it is difficult to add value to target audiences, such as high-use or high-value customers.

Some SaaS pricing models then try to add premium models to this, by adding a second solution to enable extra features and pricing to the offering, but this often creates technical challenges and is difficult to migrate customers across to.

2. SaaS Usage Based Pricing

Usage based pricing is popular and provides an ideal way to price your SaaS solution. It enables pricing scaling, the more your company use, the more you value you consume, the more you pay. It allows low cost acquisition and then scale-up in pricing towards target audiences. Ideal for B2B solutions, usage based pricing works well as disrupter within a business service sector.

This also enables additional levels to be added and funded through growth as usage drives demand. Usage based pricing also reduces and often removes barrier to entry as the SaaS platform accounts for a wide-range of customer segments, from new entrants through to high demand heavy user groups.

Usage based pricing does have some limitations. The moving up levels (and down) can be challenging for customers to see what they get for the price they pay. The key area of concern for a SaaS Solution using this model is that monthly revenue, a key metric will vary and is therefore not popular within the sector as predictable revenue is often a core demand for investors.

3. SaaS Multiple Tiered Pricing Models

One of the most effective models as it allows the SaaS platform to be priced to target audiences using tiered pricing. Tailoring different packages around target audiences enables the SaaS platform you can appeal to multiple audiences. This has a key secondary advantage in revenue generation as you maximise revenue across all channels to market. It also allows simple clear and honest upselling opportunities as well as add-on pricing with new features/levels being added in response to changing demands.

Key factors to be be aware of here is having too many pricing levels. Just because you can does not mean you should. 3 is optimum and 5 is often seen as maximum, the more you add the higher the abandonment rates and the lower the effective of marketing campaigns.

The idea of dynamic pricing, too many tiers leads towards a platform that looks like usage pricing which dilutes and degrades the tiered pricing focus on key target segments, vital for strategic success of a SaaS solution. The other downsides of too many packages is that trying to over target segments damages the focus on the tiered model, confusing customers through too many choices and damaging price effectiveness by not reflecting tiered pricing to deal with heavy use customer groups.

4a. SaaS User Pricing

The fourth pricing model moves away form company wide pricing to the end user. This model is ideal for many sectors where simple pricing wins customers over. Wether that is a fixed annual or monthly fee, its simplicity and logic engages with SaaS platforms whose offering of a direct pricing model allows customers to sign-up as individuals.

User pricing is popular as it is predictable in income and scales easily with numbers. This predictability makes it popular but needs to be internally measured by usage by individuals to see what value they generate from the platform.

While simplicity makes it popular it is also its major limitation as a pricing model. Per user charges means that there is little opportunity to get group buy-in as one person can use the platform and share the results. The inability to signup whole teams as one limits routes to market through channel partners. It also means that churn becomes a major factor as it is harder to control churn as people relate use to value as an individual.

4b. SaaS Active User Pricing

Is a variant of of user pricing but works by charging for people actually using the SaaS platform. It is seen as excellent value for money as it removes risk for purchasers as sign-up does not cost. This drives engagement and adoption as it is only usage which is charged. People can sign-up but do not pay until they actually use the platform, it is ideal for enterprise business models.

The downside of active user pricing is that it is difficult to grow outside specialist enterprise areas. Often premium priced as a live service it is difficult to encourage widespread adoption with teams or across sectors. For example accounting software is great in the finance department but off limited value elsewhere in a business.

5. SaaS Per Feature Pricing

A more recently developed and currently popular variation on the user based pricing model theme is called per feature pricing. Customers of businesses pay a subscription fee, a base fee with limited functionality which achieves MPV and adds real value and then differing premium priced add-on features which either replace the need for multiple upgrade options or allow a SaaS solution to adapt with its own specialist feature cost model expansion.

This model encourages customers to upgrade to unlock additional functionality which allows segment specialisation and directly relates those functions to direct costs. Think about gaming models where users buy the core game but then trade up by buying additional features. This per feature pricing model allows sites to know their operating cost models and revenues of the base model, and enables cost scaling for bespoke areas that may take significant resources to develop. Sub-segmentation by feature is popular as it allows cost to value to be direct and then reverse rolled back into the SaaS site as it evolves as a cost-free upgrade.

The key challenges of cost per feature pricing is that SaaS solutions can be pulled by small segments away from their core model to meet these minority groups. The other challenge of per feature pricing is that of customer frustration as key features are at a premium.

6. SaaS Freemium Pricing

Saving one of the most popular and misunderstood to last is the freemium model. This model allows customers limited functionality the SaaS solution platform for free. This enables mass adoption through any market of the SaaS platform with a clear level of functionality which buys users in. It is ideal for large volume platforms such as social media channels as the model removes the key hurdle to volume customer acquisition.

Freemium gets customers bought in for nothing as there are no barriers to entry and this supports rapid expansion through and across channels, but it does limit value adding at the freemium level. Encouraging customers to trade up and use the additional chargeable features is teh real challenge

Predicated revenue planning is the real looser here for companies. This makes it less popular with funding parties (and accounts departments) as conversion to revenue is undefined within this model. To fund freemium SaaS models multiple funding systems are often adopted, such as smart algorithm advertising which is an ideal way to fund expansion.

With freemium sites high churn rates and low loyalty rates are major drain factors to this model, both of which make traction and the ability to encourage customers to upgrade difficult. Funding to support the core functionality is often under pressure to keep it developing and engaging with the volume of its core customer base.

Summary: Successful SaaS Strategy Business Looks Like Today

SaaS solutions are now mainstream to nearly all business and customer segments. Being mainstream though does not mean that the risks have disappeared, in many ways they have increased as expectations have accelerated as audiences demands have risen.

Whichever SaaS pricing model you adopt understand that they all come with risks which need to be understood and actively managed within your planning.

SaaS solutions must be part of a strategic process for leaders to understand and deal with. One area that many leaders do not fully appreciate is that building an experienced SaaS team around them is a prerequisite for success.

Learn more read further blogs or get in touch to see how I can assist you.

Learn more at www.richardgourlay.com

Director Mentoring 6 Great Reasons to Be Mentored by Richard Gourlay

by Richard GourlayDumfries and Galloway, Innovation, opportunity, start-up advice, Strategy, Uncategorized 03/12/201901/09/2025Comments are Disabled

Richard Gourlay Director Mentoring

Being focused and clear on where you are going is vital as a director. Clarity of direction with a clear focus with your business puts leaders in control of their business. Being in control ultimately ensures leaders are successful. But taking control is one of the biggest issues leaders face. Knowing where to start, and even how to start making positive changes to your business can be a real challenge.

Leaders Mentoring Needs

Successful directors must be able to create and make change happen. Making change is essential to make their company able to meet demands and expectations of its customers. So leaders must become change makers within their organisation to make it and keep it successful. Knowing how and when to make what changes is the many skills which leaders need to develop. Being able to see the need, communicate it and deliver change is a major skillset senior people need to develop. Leaders have to be able to move outside their existing comfort zone in taking people through change..

Successful change makes a real bottom-line difference to your business success. But to go through change is often painful and difficult. This is where an experienced mentor makes a real difference.

A good mentor is someone who has not only been through change several times, but someone who also has seen it across multiple markets and with different types of people. A good mentor gets to know you as a person and gets to understand the real challenges the mentees are facing. That’s why leaders find mentors who support them achieve their goals. Richard Gourlay has been mentoring leaders for over thirty years.

The difference between Telling Mentoring and Coaching

Mentoring is the process which supports leaders develop their skills by working with them in developing the mentees skills. Mentoring is a specific set of development skills where a mentor shares their knowledge, skills and/or experience, to help another to develop and grow.

To see how mentoring sits between telling and coaching, see the graphic below. Mentoring is more effective than telling as it enables leaders to develop their skills through their real-life experiences. By talking through situations leaders learn and develop their skills, rather than being told what to do. Coaching on the other hand walks people through situations and provides guidance on specific issues. The greta advantage of mentoring is therefore that the mentee learns how to deal with business challenges rather than being coached through situations. About Richard Gourlay Mentor

Over the last 30 years I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners. Working with micro-businesses through to international PLC’s and I’ve identified that there are some key common factors that successful leaders do which ensure their success, while other business owners struggle to keep their heads above water. What I’ve learnt is that there are simple and logical steps that successful people undertake. These steps which make that something different in what they do delivers real results in taking the guess work out of their business success. This is the basis of effective mentoring.

I’ve spent years refining those key steps into a programmes of business mentoring for senior people. My mentoring programmes support personal growth. Mentoring creates bite-size action planning that develop people in their role. My director mentoring programmes enable people to develop their personal and professional skills. We develop key outcomes into sessions which develop a clear programme of development. Each programme starts by identifying mentees core strengths and areas to work on. This is then developed into a bespoke plan of what they need to do differently to be even more successful in their role.

My Director mentoring programme

Taking the guesswork out our business success requires people making simple steps over time. Mentoring support is usually a monthly process of development. Each step is small and measured, typically spread over a monthly. People are held to account to make the change they want to see. By making each step happen leaders grow themselves and their team as their confidence and competence grows. Our bespoke programmes enable business owners to work ON their business effectively rather than just spending more time IN their business.

Below are some of the key things to consider in taking the guess work out of your business success:-

1. Mentoring: Know What to Work ON

Knowing what you need to focus on makes a huge difference in where to invest your energy and resources. I’m a huge fan of the leadership culture of working ON it not IN it. If you are not working ON your business then how is it going to improve? It is the leader who must make the business stronger.

How will you, or your business be ready and able to face tomorrow’s challenges without making change happen? But you need to know what is important to work on within your business, and why! That’s where mentoring supports you grown and develop as a leader.

2. Directors: Why you are working ON your business

The only certainty in business is Change. Today that has never been truer. The pace of change in every market has, is, and will change at an ever faster rate. Changing market conditions, to customer demands, through to employee expectations have all created additional extra pressures on leaders to respond quicker. Accelerated changes within the business environment require leaders to adapt quicker and more effectively.

How should you respond to those changes? Fast enough and effectively enough to take full advantage of those changes, without loosing site of where you are going and why. If making change is a challenge or if you have ever wondered how to make positive changes, then my mentoring programme will enable you to understand why and how to make change happen. Working on your business is the most valuable actively any leader can undertake and puts you in the driving seat of your business.

3. Director Mentoring: Where to Grow

Every business owner wants to grow turnover, profitability or customer base, but how is the important question. Where is tomorrow’s growth coming from and how can you access it effectively and efficiently? This step-by-step mentoring programme will show you where growth is going to come from and how you can effectively access it.

What is good profitable growth rather than just growth. An important distinction which leaders need to recognise that all growth is not good.

4. How to Make Change Happen

Doing what we’ve always done is the natural default behaviour that people fall back into despite best intentions. Change does not happen unless you make change happen. Mentoring, working with an external advisor is an effective way to develop yourself offline from your existing line management structure. Being able to discuss personal skills development with an external mentor allows people a “safe space” to bounce ideas around, share frustrations and concerns enables people to think through making change happen.

Change is always easy to talk about, but harder to actually deliver. Change is always necessary to achieve success. This step-by-step mentoring programme enables you to create the right changes, which deliver the right results for success. Every step involves a single simple activity which is supported by a template in a workbook to create your success.

5. Director mentoring Reduce the Risks

Taking your business from where it is today to where you want it to be tomorrow is essential to keep your business competitive and successful. But change involves taking risk, but there is an even bigger risk in not making change. Director mentoring programmes reduce these risks by evaluating and balancing the risk factors effectively. Each step is focused around making sensible pro-active decisions which have been tried and tested.

Being mentored by an experienced independent director allows you to talk through ideas and thoughts with a neutral advisor . An experienced mentor provides a sounding board for director decision making and will challenge your assumptions prior to you making a decision. This reduces risk and allows a director to talk through scenarios and likely consequences. This puts risk reduction and mitigation in place to manage and overcome those risks. Being mentored therefore provides confidence and certainty in decision-making.

Richard Gourlay is an approved MentorsMe mentor, click link to see Richard Gourlay MentorsMe

6. Director Mentoring Effective Way to Grow

Taking the risk out of your business success is all about taking small, simple but highly effective steps. Steps, sometimes small, but always forward move the business in the direction you want it to go. I have designed personalised mentoring programmes to fit every type of person and business by size and sector and at every stage of its development.

Short bite size learning, on face to face or remote sessions support leaders lead successfully. I design a mentoring format with clear models (including templates) suitable to each leaders specific needs. I then bespoke design it to enable you to achieve your success. Supporting your personalised mentoring programme are emails to help support you undertake each step and keep you on track.

So if you want to take the guesswork out of your business success? Then this effective mentoring programme is specifically designed for business owners from start-ups to established businesses owners to take the guess work out of your business success. Our mentoring programmes are a combination of online and face-2-face, depending upon your needs and location.

So get started today, make the first step and contact Richard Gourlay today to start your mentoring journey, just fill in the form below.

What makes a great BRAND

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, Dumfries and Galloway, opportunity, Strategy, Uncategorized, Vision 29/11/201901/09/2025Comments are Disabled

What makes a great BRAND?

Despite what marketing people passionately believe most people don’t think about brands, they just get on with their lives. The coffee they buy, the supermarket they go to and petrol station they visit happen almost by accident. In Britain today we are too busy to think through these everyday inconsequential purchases, focused on saving time, not forgetting something or rushing from place to place on a tight deadline. So do brands matter as much as they used to and if so why and how? Brands matter where consumers can value them. In today’s wealthy world every product or service perceives itself as a brand, even if it is just a label. So what makes a great brand?

Consumer Choice

Let’s start with the basics, the consumer has choices. Endless choices if they choose to use them. But in many everyday cases as in my examples above, the consumer sacrifices those choices for simple expedience. The inability to see (or value) brand differentiation, between Starbucks and Costa, between Tesco and Morrisons between BP and Shell, and yet they each fight for space in consumers minds through tiny differences which if we stop and think about do actually exist and we the consumer do actively value.

So much more than First Impressions

So in today’s Britain, what is important about a brand? Is it the halo effect, the first impression, like the smile on the front of a car or is it something more, something deeper and more tangible? Ask the owners of Sunny D (the 90’s orange juice lookalike) and you will find that the halo effect does not last if your brand is not true to itself and to its consumers. Customers have to believe in a brand, it must tell the truth, be transparent and honest if it is to be successful. Gerald Ratner (former MD of Ratners the jewellers who said about his products “because it’s total crap”) also found out that in today’s world everyone must truly believe in the brand, not just the marketing department but the whole company has to believe it and most importantly practice the brands beliefs.

Clear Brand Strategy

Being clear and precise is also important in the company’s messages for a brand to succeed, a strong undiluted brand message must enthuse internally but must also consistently connect with customers through touch points, look at Innocent, Dorset Cereals or Apple as classic examples of touch point. They also demonstrate a clear story delivered with passion about who they are what they do and why they matter. This focused and consistent message is not just a marketing message but an ingrained set of values which consumers buy into with passion. These brands not only position themselves as premium players in their fields and earn more but they also continuously find new ways to spread their key messages to customers, they have a clear brand strategy to achieve it.

Everyone Lives the Brand

Another vital aspect of any brand success is that the people within that brand demonstrate what they preach, they live that lifestyle, support that brand and contribute to its success. It is their lifestyle, it is a part of the way they and their brand do business.

Great brands go beyond the brand to understand its real value to existing customers but also to tomorrow’s customers. Whether it is a family run local shop or a global supermarket chain great brands position themselves so they develop and hold a market position to develop long-term success.

Vision and Purpose

Great brands create, sustain and evangelise a culture which supports and drives their brand. Creating a culture which underpins an organisations vision and purpose is a key prerequisite for ensuring sustainability of a great brand. Sustainability of a vision can only be achieved if the organisation is supported by an underlying culture which fits with the brands ethos.

Great brands can only transpose from the innovative visionary founder if they create a supportive culture to sustain the brand. An effective and appropriate culture is one which supports the brand and ensures it is can sustain its market position over time. Great brands sustain themselves through a great culture.

The culture of a brand, otherwise seen as the handwriting of the organisation, enables sustainability of the brand over time. Culture today matters from how people work together through to acquisition of appropriate talent. The right people are drawn to a brand they aspire to be part. Business partners focus on brands with likeminded cultures andante to be part of a great brand. In the exact same way customers aspire to be associated with a great brand.

Great Brands are not Labels

Great brands drive markets. By challenging them through innovation and changing perceptions. Labels on the other hand feed off brands by picking of successful innovations for downstream ‘me too’ market following customers. Great brands invest high proportions of their resources in driving markets forward, through innovative products and services. Great brands are seen to out invest other players more double the the market average.

Creating innovative pipeline cultures thinking long-term make positions rather than short-term tactical single product successes. Labels focus on creating market winning season products, they act as followers often being low-cost alternatives to the brand leaders in any sector. Brands focus on the longterm innovation which shift the paradigm of relationship with the customer through the brand.

Great Brands Add Value

Great brands also develop their own uniqueness, not just the product or service but the whole package is how we do it around here. There needs to be not only consistency but the brand hand writing and value on how they do it. The best brands always develop singular simple signals for customers, cutting through jargon to create clarity without patronisation.

For brands to succeed in today’s global markets these golden rules have never been more important as consumers have never had so much information, but if you follow these simple rules of brand success you can develop and maintain a great brand.

Looking for Advice

If you want to develop your company’s brand and are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden to see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at Cowden

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Cowden Consulting is a strategic planning and implementation business which works in partnership with customers to grow and develop their business, contact us to learn more.

Posted 1st December 2011 by Richard Gourlay

Location: Old Glenstocken, Colvend, Stewarty of Kirkcudbright, Galloway

Labels: brand brand identity brand strategy brand strength branding business success marketing strategy strategic direction strategy sustainable companies values vision

SaaS Business make you own path by Richard Gourlay

How Steve Jobs changed the World

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Values, Dumfries and Galloway, Innovation, opportunity, Strategy 29/11/201901/09/2025Comments are Disabled

Apple’s founder and talisman, Steve Jobs has finally had to step down from running the world’s most successful company. It is probably overdue that the world recognises this brilliant strategist who changed the world. Here’s how Steve Jobs changed the world.

Had Steve Jobs just set-up Apple he would have gone down in history as a great inventor. But to have done it twice over with the same company, while in the process creating the world’s biggest company, surely makes him the greatest ever. Possibly his most important contribution was that he created markets and then the best products possible for those new markets. Steve Jobs understood that the technology needed to work for customers, rather than expect people to work the technology.

A Brilliant Visionary

As a brilliant businessman and strategist, he more importantly created world class products and ran the company that delivered those products to market. Most superb inventors just invent, and most great directors’ focus on leading. To do both simultaneously to such a high standard is an outstanding achievement.

Steve Jobs is so unusual because he understands that great technology does not sell itself. That to have great technology you have to be passionate not only about what you produce, but also about the world in which your products exist.

Steve Jobs a brief history

1976 started Apple with Stephen Wozniak to make and sell printed circuit boards
1978 launched a new disc drive which made the money to invest in whole computers
Launched the revolutionary Macintosh computer in 1984
Ousted from Apple in 1985 and returned after creating NeXT in 1996 which Apple bought
Created Pixar with $5 billion in box-office sales, sold for $7.4 to Disney in 1996
Created the i-generation with more to come such as iCloud and entering the TV market

While to many who did not understand his holistic strategy, they looked for and saw flaws. They tried to stab the ego and even removed him from his own company (to play safe with what he had produced as a single new product). He played the long game recognising that the world would not be changed overnight. This was his strategic master-stoke. He got the timing right by understanding the big picture and knowing when to strike.

A Difficult Man To Work With

He has been described by those who have worked with him as wilful, irascible, temperamental and stubborn, to name a few. But can anyone do so much without at least those characteristics to change the world? Other words, which people often use to describe him, include perfectionist, insistent and mesmerising. These words are the ones which the world will remember for. These drove him and describe how he has achieved such global success.

As a manager he had difficult dealings with many people at all levels, from investors and employees. Management and human relationships was not Steve Jobs’ forte. These difficulties made him human. They were simple human failings which showed he was not perfect, but not issues which limited his vision or aspirations.

Steve Jobs Stanford Address

In his Stanford addresss (click here to see it here) in 2005 he explained what made him, drove him and continued to motivate him to become the person he was. This address is one of the few times he spoke of the huge success for which the world will remember him for.

Steve Jobs changed the world.

He saw a world revolution in technology before anyone else, and saw how he could drive that change. Great strategic thinking not only thinking about change, but also the impact of that change will have. That’s what makes him simply the best. Other owners and directors were working on improving their share price, or becoming number one with their new product. Focusing on the today, this month’s or this years priorities, not on changing the world. Steve Jobs looked beyond the single product to look at the whole picture of what a new world might look like.

Steve Jobs drove Apple to rethink the world and in doing so became its biggest player. His line in recruiting John Sculley from Pepsi “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world”. This sums up his strategic brilliance.

Steve Jobs Visionary

Evidence of this brilliant approach comes throughout his career. From using Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire music to launch the Macintosh, through to his unforgettable iPod launch where with a huge back screen shot he casually produced it from the back pocket of his jeans! Steve Jobs has learnt how to successfully engage with audiences. Every product is meticulously planned with product lined up to two years in advance, with innovative marketing from start to finish.

Moving From Technology to Retail

From a business which started out a just selling technology, it is now seen as having the best retail environment. That retail environment created places people actually want to visit. Apple shops where the focus is on excellence, not on pedalling technology cheaper than the next retailer.

Steve Jobs has always had an eye for detail. His artistic flare turned geeky boxes into works of art. Steve want on a calligraphy course which led him to have a non standard font, Apple Garamond created rather than traditional New Roman Times font. Something he goaded Microsoft about at a high school speech some years later. That attention to detail is what demonstrated his perfectionist approach and left the competitors looking and feeling like they were in the dark ages.

Think Different Campaign

Apple’s “Think different” strategy has worked so well since 1997 because it touched people who felt there was no alternative to Bill Gates’ Microsoft monopoly of software. Think Different also drove change for both the 50,000 Apple employees and allowing his strategy to infect and spread globally. It was not only technical people who bought into Macs but a whole new generation of users, who found that there was a credible alternative that did more than just be a glorified typewriter.

While Apple was never one man. Steve Jobs legacy will be difficult to estimate for many years to come as the world’s most successful businessman. The old adage, it is not what one has done that counts but what one leaves to grow, that is the measure of a man’s success. It will take time for the world to see his true legacy, but the following puts some numbers behind this success.

Since Steve Jobs comeback in 1997 Apple has sold:-

26 million iPhones
60 million computers
200 million iPods
1 billion iTunes songs

Apple is currently valued at $356 billion ($2 Billion ahead of Exxon). Making it the largest company in the world. Last quarter alone Apple profits more than doubled to $7.3 billion. Sales rose by 82% to $28.6 billion by selling 20 million iPhones, 9 million iPads, 8 million iPods and 4 million Mac computers.

Steve Jobs announcement of his retirement wiped $17 billion *(5%) from its market share. But over his leadership he has increased its share value by 9000% since 1997.