Blue Ocean Strategies

"Blue Ocean Strategy" by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, 2005, Harvard Business School Press, ISBN978-1-59139-619-2 Key Concepts:
How to establish competitive advantage by creating a new class of customers or unique business proposition in an area of unmet need.

Blue Ocean Strategy is about creating a new market for goods or services that is not currently being served and for which your organization is ideally positioned. Insights come from keenly observing your customers and anticipating a need that is not fully expressed.

Why is this important for associations?
Associations are already uniquely positioned in the competitive environment but often do not think or behave in an entrepreneurial manner. The need to compete in a tight economy will force associations out of their comfort zone and adopting a "Blue Ocean Startegy" can be the answer to their future survival.

Emerging Markets and Association Growth

Emerging and new international markets represent the single best opportunity for significant association growth in 2012.

This free white paper helps to:

Define why emerging markets are so attractive for associations.

Explain in detail how to run a membership growth campaign

Show why it is so important to use strategy and tactics to succeed and grow.

Download your FREE copy today and learn how to grow your association!

Franchising & Licensing

"Franchising & Licensing" by Andrew J. Sherman, 2004, American Management Association, ISBN 978-0-8144-7222-4Key Concepts:
Franchising and Licensing of Intellectual Property, including brands, services, events, education and certification products as examples, can provide excellent opportunities for associations and businesses to develop new sources of revenue. In particular, Franchising and Licensing can be used as a strategic approach to tap new markets while managing exposure to risk and reducing the amount of capital and resources required.

Why is this important for associations?
When considering new markets in other countries, franchising or licensing of products and services might offer a superior approach compared to developing the market using your own resources. The "not-for-profit" association model is not equally applied or protected around the world and different, for-profit approaches may make better sense for your organization.

Global Growth Strategies - The International Association (Updated for 2012!)

Key Concepts:
Global markets offer the most promising opportunities for significant growth for many organizations. However, exploiting these opportunities represents numerous challenges including competitive, legal, financial, governance, culture, membership, staffing and service issues.

Why is this important for associations?
This 65p. document outlines the main areas that all organizations need to consider when operating internationally and describes alternative business models and approaches. 

This document has been used as a reference resource for hundreds of Board Members and Senior Staff when considering their international objectives.

Request your free electronic copy!

Groundswell

“Groundswell – Winning in a world Transformed by Social Technologies” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, 2008 Forrester Research Inc., ISBN978-1-4221-2500-7Key Concepts:
Leading companies are harnessing the power of their customer communities for more effective marketing, brand management and product development. The book uses research and case studies to illustrate the point.

The book also provides key concepts on how organizations can develop a strategy to interact with their customer communities as well as how to segment and profile those communities.

Why is this important for associations?
Many of the examples and concepts can be directly applied to the association community, however, the research and examples are geared primarily towards the corporate environment. Therefore associations will need to tailor the concepts with the unique governance structure of an association to put the concepts into practice.