Coca-Cola’s move into selling milk is part of a far deeper shift in the consumer marketplace.
Coca-Cola are now selling milk as their markets move away from consuming sugary drinks, how much of this is due to the baby boomer era coming to an end?
Following yesterday’s post on McDonalds and the franchising model, it’s worthwhile considering how other businesses are being affected by today’s changing society.
McDonalds’, KFC’s and most particularly Coca-Cola’s Twentieth Century success is largely due to the post war baby boom, as the children born during and after World War II reached adolescence – the Jagger generation as described by Irish economist David McWilliams – they indulged themselves in their newfound wealth and personal freedoms that were unthinkable for their parents who struggled through two world wars and a depression.
Coca-Cola was the emblem of that freedom and wealth which made up the twentieth century American dram that the world envied, adopted and copied. Today the world still looks to the United States but its a different America they see.
As the Jagger generation retires and sugary drinks are no longer their first priority their kids and grandkids are looking to different beverages; coffee, energy drinks, bottled water and, possibly, milk which are more in line with their lifestyles.
The task of Coca-Cola, and all the other brands that represented post War American affluence, the task now is to adapt to a very different generation and a society with priorities very different to that of the previous century.
McDonalds and the declining franchising model of fast food chains are another symptom of a changing economy and society
One of the biggest business innovations of the late Twentieth Century was the franchising model. Now as technology changes that way of working isn’t necessarily the force it was a quarter century ago.
While the concept itself wasn’t new – The East India Company at the beginning of the Seventeen Century was a type of franchise – the model really took off in modern business with the automotive industry where different manufacturers granted franchises to their brands.
After World War II it was the fast food industry that developed the franchise model into a tightly controlled, procedure driven way of doing business.
Building the fast food franchise
The fast food franchise model worked well for everybody; for the brand, it meant they could expand without huge layouts of capital while for budding local entrepreneurs purchasing a franchise meant buying into a proven business model with a known brand name.
McDonalds was the leader in the fast food franchising sector; the company expanded across the US and then globally on the back of the procedures first developed by the founding brothers then expanded by Ray Croc as he sought to roll out an industrial scale burger chain where a cheeseburger in Arkansas tasted the same as one in Alaska.
To achieve this, he chose a unique path: persuading both franchisees and suppliers to buy into his vision, working not for McDonald’s, but for themselves, together with McDonald’s. He promoted the slogan, “In business for yourself, but not by yourself.” His philosophy was based on the simple principle of a 3-legged stool: one leg was McDonald’s, the second, the franchisees, and the third, McDonald’s suppliers. The stool was only as strong as the 3 legs.
Croc’s concept was fantastically successful as the franchisees took the operational risks and stumped up most of the capital while McDonalds providing the branding, procedures and supplies.
Many other industries, and fast food chains, copied Croc’s idea and the modern franchise model spread from hamburgers to lawn mowing to industrial safety services. During the 1970s and 80s, a smart, hard working entrepreneurs could do very well buying one of the bigger franchises.
Wobbling franchises
Around the turn of the century though that model started to wobble; during the 1990s the sharks began to move into the franchising industry with many sub-standard systems. McDonalds and the other fast food chains compounded the problem of poor performance by selling too many franchises in a mad dash for growth.
Young entrepreneurs have changed as well; rather than raising several hundred thousand dollars to pay franchise fees to be constrained by a strict set of procedures, today’s keen young go getters are more interested in the opportunities of building new businesses from scratch as startups.
Access to capital is also a problem as today its harder to raise money from a bank unless a business owner has ample home equity or other real assets to secure lending; the risk adverse nature of banks is making it harder for these capital intensive businesses.
Technological change
The killer though for the franchise model seems to have technological and social change; as consumer lifestyles and preferences changed, so too has the underlying demand for both franchises and their products.
McDonalds’ fading in the United States illustrates this change as companies like Chipotle take over from the once dominant chain as technology has made it more efficient to standardise procedures and customise food service.
Once McDonalds was an investor in Chipotle and Quartz Magazine describes how the relationship foundered with one of the key points of friction being differences over the franchising model.
“What we found at the end of the day was that culturally we’re very different,” Chipotle founder and co-CEO Steve Ells said. “There are two big things that we do differently. One is the way we approach food, and the other is the way we approach our people culture. It’s the combination of those things that I think make us successful.”
Just as technology – the automobile created the increasing suburbanisation of America – drove McDonalds’ growth so too is it now contributing to the chain’s demise as chains like Chipotle can cater to a market with different expectations and deliver a product that doesn’t need the mass production techniques of the 1950s.
As a consequence, the big procedure driven model of franchising isn’t so necessary any more. While the concept of franchising remains sound, what worked in the post World War II years isn’t so compelling today.
It’s fashionable to think of companies like newspapers as being the victims of technological change but the truth is most of the businesses we think as being dominant today are the result of advances over the last 150 years, the evolution of McDonalds and the franchising model is just another chapter.
Is it now the turn of the CIO to go the way of the tea lady
Once every workplace had a tea lady; usually a happy friendly woman who cheefully dispensed tea, buscuits and office gossip around an organisation.
During the 1980s the company tea lady vanished as companies cut costs and changing workplaces made the role redundant, is it now the turn of the CIO to go the way of the tea lady?
Yesterday research company company Frost and Sullivan hosted in a lunch in Sydney outlining their views on the growth of cloud computing based upon their 2014 State Of The Cloud report.
The report itself had few surprises with a forecast of the cloud market growing 30% each year over the next five years, a statistic that won’t surprise many watching how users are moving away from desktop applications.
Shifting procurement
One of the key trends though is how cloud services change the procurement process and lock IT managers and Chief Information Officers out of decision making. As the report says;
Half of all organisations feel that the decision making process is shifting from that of the CIO and IT department to the individual business unit for implementation or updates of cloud applications such as HR, payroll, collaboration and conferencing.
While the report puts a positive spin on what it describes as the “evolving role of IT within organisations”, Mark Dougan – Frost & Sullivan’s Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand – mentioned that often the decision to adopt a cloud service were made by executive management and then the CIO was told to implement the technology.
This illustrates how CIOs’ already tenuous grip on being a senior management role has slipped. With the rise of cloud services, it’s become easier for executives to make choices without considering the technological consequences.
Probably the business that best illustrates this shift has been Salesforce where many corporations find they have dozens of subscriptions being charged to sales managers’ credit cards, much to the chagrin of company accountants and IT managers. Salesforce and similar businesses have driven the trend so far that many consulting firms predict marketing departments will control more technology spending than IT managers in the near future.
That shift predates the coining of the word ‘cloud’, the term “port 80 and a credit card” was used to describe the Salesforce model of sales people signing up to what was then described as Software As A Service (SaaS) earlier in the century.
The electricity and railway industries remain huge employers and are essential to modern business but most for most companies the products are taken for granted – few companies have a Chief Electricity Officer sitting on their executive team despite power being an essential service.
For those IT managers hoping for a senior c-level position or even a seat on the board, the move to the cloud is terrible news. Rather than getting the corner office, the CIO could be heading the way of the tea lady.
The performance of Apple and Microsoft in recent years show two very different management philosophies.
The stunning quarterly results of Apple announced yesterday compared to Microsoft’s indifferent performance illustrate how the fortunes of two different business cultures have changed.
Apple yesterday announced a spectacular result for its quarter finishing at the end of last year with revenues up 30%, profits by 38% and Earnings Per Share just short of fifty percent.
The announcement was an emphatic vindication for Tim Cook and his management team who made some big bets on the larger form factor iPhone 6 which paid off spectacularly with shipments growing 46% to 74.5 million and revenue reaching $51.2 billion, over two thirds of the company’s total sales.
One notable aspect of Apple’s success is the difference with Microsoft’s and this shows how different business cultures come in and out of fashion.
The Triumph of the MBA
For two decades Microsoft’s licensing business model was dominant and this confirmed the MBA view that companies should do everything they can to move design, research, manufacturing and distribution out of their operations – the virtual corporation where there was no inventory, few costs and even fewer risks was the ultimate aim of the modern manager at the turn of the century.
Microsoft encapsulated this philosophy with its licensing model, while the company made massive sales with huge margins – as it still does – all the business risks in the computer market were carried by resellers and equipment manufacturers. For many years the markets loved this.
Apple tinkered with the licensing model under John Sculley in the mid 1990s during Steve Jobs’ exile but was never really serious about giving away its hardware capabilities and in 2001 moved into retail with the opening of the first Apple Store.
Coupled with the App Store, Apple have come to control the entire customer journey from marketing, design, purchase and ongoing revenue after the product is bought.
King of the new Millennium
While the 1980s and 90s were the time of triumph for the Microsoft model, the 2000s have been good to Apple as shown by the revenue and profit figures.
Apple and Microsoft Revenues 2000-2014Apple and Microsoft Profits 2000-2014
The key inflection point in these charts is, of course, the iPhone’s release in 2007. Apple caught the wave of change as computer use switched from personal computers to smartphones and is now the dominant vendor.
For Microsoft the success of Apple is bittersweet; the company had a smartphone operating system in Windows CE but it was too early to the market and the devices vendors went to market with were, at best, substandard.
Microsoft’s failure with the smartphone was also echoed with tablet computers and exposed the licensing model’s reliance on vendors to supply and support decent products, even today Microsoft’s hardware partners struggle to release decent tablet systems.
Cloudy on the web
Another problem that exposed Microsoft’s weaknesses was the rise of the web where hardware and operating systems really did matter so much any more. Along with pushing out personal computer lifecycles it also had the consequence of allowing other systems into the marketplace, notably Linux and Google Android.
With OS X, Android and Linux systems no longer hampered with the compatibility issues that irritated non-Windows users in the 1990s the market was open to adopting those systems. While the PC market has remained quite loyal to Windows, although the Apple Macs are showing serious growth as well, Microsoft’s system has barely any marketshare in other device segments except servers which are also declining as business increasingly move to cloud services.
Apple have shown in the computing and smartphone business that controlling the hardware products is as important as supplying the software, a lesson that Microsoft now acknowledges with its restructure into a ‘Devices and Services’ company under former CEO Steve Ballmer.
Under current CEO Satya Nadella Microsoft is focusing on cloud services which also aren’t as profitable as its legacy operations but see it competing with companies like Amazon and Google who don’t boast the profits from their online operations that Apple makes from its hardware.
Microsoft aside, the lesson Apple gives the technology is pertinent for its competitors in the smartphone space as well; companies like Samsung, LG and the army of Chinese handset vendors are going to find their markets tough unless they can take control of their software development and distribution channels – relying on Google for Android and telcos to get their phones to customers leaves them exposed in similar ways to Microsoft’s partners in the last decade.
In the battle between business models, Apple is the current winner and shows throwing all of your business operations over the fence to partners and licensees is a risky strategy. How those lessons are applied in other sectors will test the limits of both management philosophies.
With the holiday season over, there’s a couple of things all businesses should be reviewing to make the most of the mobile marketplace.
It’s a bit late in the month for New Year’s resolutions but with the work year now fully underway it’s not too late to do a quick health check of your company’s mobile presence.
Two years ago we passed the point where smartphone sales overtook those of personal computers and increasingly customers are expecting not only to find a business on their phone but also be able to read the company’s website on a mobile.
So the new years resolutions are simple; look at your company’s website on some smartphones and check the listings in Facebook and Google My Business are correct.
The Facebook and Google listings are simple and if it turns out they are out of date or wrong can be quickly and easily fixed. These are probably two of the most cost effective marketing things you can do for your business.
Should the website look dreadful on a smartphone then things are bit trickier and you may have to contact your web designer to enable a responsive function on your site. Responsive design detects the device a visitor is using and adapts to suit. Some older sites and platforms don’t support this and if that’s the case you need to start planning and budgeting for a redesign immediately.
If the site is based on modern platforms like WordPress or Drupal there are plugins that will do most of the work automatically while services such as Blogger and Wix have responsive features built in, although you may have to tweak the site’s template to give prominence to important information on a smaller screen.
That important information includes contact details, address, opening hours and a concise description of your business, the quicker customers can find these, the more likely you’ll win them. If you’re in hospitality then linking your location to Google Maps will help guests find you.
While these three tasks are simple things, and by no means a full digital strategy, they are probably the quickest, easiest and cheapest things you can do to get in front of customers in an increasingly demanding and crowded market that expects to find you on their smartphones.
The future of Goodle,,how the name ‘Silicon Valley’ came about, why solar power is getting cheaper and how some startups die.
On many measures Google are in trouble, but one analyst thinks we’re panicking and his view is the lead of today’s links of the day. We also look at how the name ‘Silicon Valley’ came about, why solar power is getting cheaper and how some startups die.
“Google is down but it’s not out” is the warning of this analyst’s report on the company’s earnings and strategy. Interestingly Google outspends Apple by $4bn a year on research and development, but both of them are dwarfed by Microsoft’s spending, which indicates R&D investment doesn’t guarantee success.
Last Sunday marked the 44th anniversary of the first time the label ‘Silicon Valley’ appeared in print. The US Computer History Museum looks at how the name came about and no-one will be surprised it was a marketing person who coined it.
A few years ago putting solar cells on a building was expensive, now in many parts of the world the price of PV panels is becoming competitive with mains power. Vox Magazine looks at the factors driving the price drops and finds that economies of scale are now the main factor affecting the falling cost of installed solar power systems.
One of the earliest food review platforms was Urbanspoon which was founded on the basis it would only grow as a bootstrapped company. In 2009 the founders sold out to a larger company who have now sold it onto an Indian business who is going to shut the name down.
That’s a bit of stretch as Uber’s simply an application of the technologies that are changing business and the economy; those technologies are having a more profound effect on the role of managers in the modern workplace.
Along with services like AirBnB and Task Rabbit, are the result of the new breed of cloud, mobile and big data tools that make it easier to deploy new business models which in themselves threaten traditional industries and their executives.
Uber’s success is in finding an industry that in much of the world has been ripe for disruption for decades; in most Western cities cab services have been regulated to protect plate holders’ incomes and often to protect corrupt local cartels.
What Uber’s disruption shows is how those tools can be deployed against cosy incumbents.
Probably the cosiest group of incumbents of all have been corporate managers; over the last thirty years businesses have been downsized, workers have become more productive and many functions have been outsourced or offshored.
Management however has largely remained untouched as the need to supervise business functions has remained.
Now those tools – particularly the smart algorithms that run companies like Google, Facebook and Uber – are coming for managers in many industries. Added to the manager’s dilemma are improved collaboration tools that allow workers and machines to communicate and make decision autonomously without the need for supervision.
Possibly the greatest change in business over the next decade will be the disappearance of the manager as software takes over.
business in 2015 will be a lot more competitive as technology drives prices down
One forecast about 2015 that’s very easy to make is businesses with high costs are in for a tough time.
As competition steps up, global forces puts pressure on prices and technological change allows new competitors into marketplaces, the companies that aren’t flexible and keeping an eye on where they are spending money are going to find 2015 will not be a happy year.
For the tech industry the predictions for next year are easy – there will be more security beaches, governments will want more powers to access our data while proving they can’t be trusted with what they already have, a new hot social media network will appear, well known brands will collapse, the net will get faster, more devices will be connected to Internet of Things and prices will continue to fall.
It’s the falling prices that will be what defines business in 2015 as we enter deflationary times; not the economists’ nightmare of prices falling in the face of collapsed demand – although that’s not out of the question – but in the more positive sense of business inputs being cheaper.
Part of this is driven by newer cheaper sources of energy and labour, other driving factors are increased automation in fields where wages have historically been the biggest cost and manufacturing processes are putting pressure on prices for most goods. The commodities prices collapse may also be a key factor in 2015.
For some industries, such as the IT industry, falling prices aren’t a new concept. Any computer superstore or local PC repairer who holds inventory gets a nasty reminder of the sector’s economics every time they do a stocktake. However many businesses operate on the assumption prices will always rise overtime, a not unfair assumption given the inflation we’ve seen over the last fifty years.
Getting costs down
With falling prices, it means businesses have to be more aggressive in cutting costs; whether it’s telephone or power bills through to professional services or banking fees, the onus is now on managers to squeeze as much value for the dollar as they can.
In the technology field the targets are obvious; are your old computer preventing you from using new software? Do cloud services offer a better deal than your old server based systems? Are your service providers charging too much?
For the wider business looking at how newer technologies affect your workflow could well prove rewarding, it may well there’s whole range of areas your company can become more efficient through adopting new systems.
A good candidate for slashing costs and improving flexibility is transport where too many companies are still paying Cabcharge’s overpriced fees when apps like Ingogo or Uber are cheaper and better. Why have company vehicles when car sharing services like GoGet can offer more value. Do you still need an expensive Yellow Pages listing when a free Google My Business entry will get you in front of more potential customers, particularly on the all important mobile platforms?
Then there’s the whole outsourcing question where it’s becoming easier to hire knowledge workers on an as needed basis through the various online platforms like O-Desk and Freelancer.
Over the break, it’s worthwhile reviewing your operations and seeing where you can use technology to cut costs and become more flexible in face of a rapidly changing marketplace. One prediction is certain; those with bloated costs and inflexible management are in for a tough 2015.
Large scale 3D printing is about to radically change the building industry
One of the longest running large scale 3D printing projects is based at the UK’s Loughborough University where since 2007 researchers have been working on developing the technology’s applications to the construction industry.
Loughborough’s technology, named Freeform, offers faster and more flexible ways of casting concrete and building structures using a computer controlled concrete pouring system. For property developers the attraction is cheaper buildings while for architects the technologies offer more innovative structures.
The venture, which will include collaborations with companies including iconic UK architects Foster and Partners, Buchan Concrete, Scandinavian contracting giant ABB and Lafarge Tarmac, aims to have the first commercially available robot printer available by mid 2016.
Competing with the European venture is Chinese company WinSun who earlier this year showcased its 3D printer capable of producing ten houses every 24 hours. An interesting aspect of WinSun’s project is that the printing rig was build out of existing parts and controlled by an off the shelf Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing software system.
While the Chinese results are relatively crude, they show the potential for the technology. The economics of the WinSun project are enhanced by using waste building site material for the concrete which only increases the attraction of these machines to cost conscious property developers.
The Chinese and British are not just the only countries working on these technologies, in the Netherlands the 3D Print Canal House shows how techniques and materials are being developed while in the United States the University of Southern California’s Contour Crafting project is looking at how to use large scale 3D printing in a range of construction scenarios including building space colonies.
While using moon dust to build structures in space is some way off, both Freeform and WinSun show what will become commonplace on building sites in the near future.
These technologies promise to radically change architecture and the building industry with ramifications for jobs and the economics of building structures. 3D printing buildings is another example of how industries and employment will be very different by the middle of this century.
For businesses, it’s another example of how managers have to prepare for very different marketplaces.
Market share is important, but it isn’t always the ultimate measure of a business’ successes
Recode’s Walt Mossberg looks at the mobile phone industry with the observation that while Google’s Android system is dominating the market, all is not what it seems.
While Android’s market share is impressive, Apple still has the profitable high end of the market and Google’s is increasingly finding that low end smartphone manufacturers are prepared to run with the slimmed down Android Open system rather than submit to Google’s licensing requirements.
Just as Apple can be fairly relaxed about Google’s position in the smartphone market, Twitter’s Ev Williams dismissed concerns around his service after the news Instagram had passed the 300 million user mark.
Fortune’s Erin Griffith reported Williams’ feisty response: “If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it’s pretty significant. It’s at least apples to oranges. Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter—important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter. If that’s happening, I frankly don’t give a shit if Instagram has more people looking at pretty pictures.”
As Griffith observes Wall Street doesn’t share Williams’ view and that’s an increasing problem for the company, but both Apple’s and Twitter’s view to their market position illustrates how sheer numbers don’t necessarily matter.
Having an up to date website makes good business sense and reduces legal risk
Imagine you were overcharged by four dollars for a home delivered Chinese meal. Would you harrass the restaurateur and demand extra payments? The story of Ben Edelman and Boston’s Sichuan Gardens Chinese restaurant illustrates the importance of a business having an up to date website.
Boston.com describes the saga of when Edelman ordered a delivery of $53 worth of Chinese food, on checking the bill he found he had been charged four dollars more than the restaurant’s website indicated.
Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, didn’t take this injustice lying down; he contacted the restaurant and when the proprietor, Ran Duan, admitted the prices on the website were out of date Edelman demanded twelve dollars — in line with the typical damages awarded against overcharging businesses under Massachusetts state law.
While the matter between Edelman and the Sichuan Gardens remains unresolved the dispute illustrates why it is so important for small businesses to keep their website current.
At least Sichuan Gardens has a website as many Australian hospitality establishments don’t bother and, when they do, often neglect the basics like opening hours, location, telephone number and other contact details. It costs business as potential customers can’t find them.
To be fair to Ben Edelman many of us who’d been overcharged four dollars would probably not bother contacting the restaurant, we’d be more likely to order from someone else next time we felt like having Chinese delivered. At least the professor let the establishment know they had a problem.
For those restaurants and cafes who do have a website, often the menus or rates are out of date and are in formats — usually PDF documents — that can’t be indexed by Google, meaning potential customers searching the web for ‘braised fish fillets with and Napa cabbage with roasted chili’ might be missing out. Menus should be on the site as their own web page in HTML format that search engines can read.
Once a menu is published on a website, it’s necessary to keep it up to date. Having out of date prices on menus is just as much a breach of Australian consumer laws as it is in Massachusetts, so there’s legal aspects to having current information on the site as well.
Losing customers
Probably the biggest risk for most restaurants and cafes though is lost business because those potential customers can’t find you. Wasting hours arguing with angry customers like Ben Edelman is also a genuine cost to the business as well.
With most proprietors and managers in the hospitality industry being chronically short of time, it’s essential websites are easy for staff to access and update; the days of complex updating tools or paying your web guy a couple of hundred dollars every time you want to change a page are long gone. Systems like WordPress, Blogger or Wix offer free services which are adequate for getting the basics up on line quickly.
Social media listing are important too, with most customers searching on their smartphones for venues; having a basic Google My Business page and a Facebook listing are the least you can do to help your customers find your establishment.
Ultimately none of us want fights with our customers, so letting them know who you and what you charge is plain good business sense. With so many other businesses not having a basic web presence also gives you the advantage over the competition.
Uber has made a lot of mistakes in its latest PR mishap, other businesses can learn from them.
The debacle of Uber’s management proposing to threaten journalists drags on and is becoming a classic case of what not to do during a public relations crisis as the company and its supporters continue to make matter worse for themselves.
What’s notable about the hole Uber finds itself in is that it didn’t need to be there; a bit of maturity and commonsense, not to mention knowing when to shut up, would have helped avoid this self inflicted wound to the business.
Much of the damage done by the story could have been avoided by following a few simple steps.
Stop digging
One of life’s key rules is when you find yourself in a hole then the first step to getting out is to stop digging. When the critics are loud, shut up and take a breather. Instead of exacerbating problems, step back, have a think and, if necessary, get some professional help.
Have some perspective
The most fundamental attribute for managers and owners is not to take criticism too seriously; there are always critics and letting them consume your daily lives is counterproductive and ultimately destructive as Richard Nixon would attest.
Usually in business the critics aren’t diminishing you as a person, in most cases they are making observations about your company’s economic model or its actions in the marketplace. If you’re taking criticism too personally, it might be time for a holiday.
Just because someone is criticising you, it doesn’t mean they are in the pay of your competitors or part of the socialist-masonic-jewish-illumaniti conspiracy to get you, they may actually your best friends and even have a point.
Your business priorities
How do these criticisms affect your ambitions for your business? If Sarah Lacy thinks you’re a bunch of misogynist scumballs, does it matter? Often the critics don’t matter to your business as they are a different group to your customers, investors or staff.
Is there merit?
A key question when confronted with criticism should be ‘is there merit to this?’ Before threatening to smear or sue those pointing out your business’ shortcoming it’s good to have a look to see if the critics do have a point about what you’re doing wrong.
Fix the problem
Should it turn out the critics do have a problem, then fix it. Should it turn out your business has a toxic bro’ culture then fire a few of the toxic bros and hire some people with the backbone to fix the problem.
Be open about things
If the criticisms are legitimate, then acknowledge them and be open about how you’re going to fix them. Some critics won’t be satisfied but that’s part of life, you won’t keep everyone happy.
For those critics who will be happy, admitting you’ve made mistakes and are working on fixing the problems will win more fans and supporters. People love a bit of humility and it probably doesn’t hurt for managers to be a bit humble.
On the other hand, it might be that some of your critics do genuinely hate you, are in the pay of your competitors or part of the Illuminati conspiracy. In which case, use facts and stand your ground. In the battle for public opinion, having the facts on your side always gives you the advantage.
Personally attacking your critics though is always a mistake and, as Nixon found, smearing them turns out to be a mistake. Life is too short and time in running a growing business too scarce to be consumed by hate. Get over it and move on.
Get professional help
In Uber’s case it appears their managers have been frantically calling their buddies to help out — this hasn’t helped and has probably exacerbated an already heated environment. A good professional PR adviser or reputation management company will know how to at least ease the pressure if not completely defuse the situation.
Regardless of how good the PR adviser are though, ultimately a business’ good name comes from its management and how the company behaves. This where Uber has to take more care as it becomes a global giant.
