“Change is coming”--it's a bit of a troupe. After the world-changing experience of the COVID pandemic, frequent, rapid change in business has become universal and continual. [Check out our blog on important lessons learned.] Some of the biggest changes are common across all businesses:

The organizational culture that you establish may be your most valuable asset and the key to your growth. Although culture and brand are both thought of as hard to define, measure, and manage, it’s important to understand the impact of brand equity on profit margin, customer acquisition, and customer retention. Being able to measure the value of your business culture will ultimately drive authenticity within your organization.

What to expect in 2022? After the last two years, we are prepared for anything! There are ongoing changes to privacy regulation and management that will impact what you can measure, and what you should expect in the year to come.

Is your culture a true competitive advantage? In today's market, with little opportunity for face-to-face relationship building, your business culture matters more than ever to ensure a positive customer experience and win the war for talent. Brand development based on a strong culture supports connection, growth, and sustainability within the working environment. Take a look at 9 ways you can leverage culture in your company to help strengthen your brand and promote a positive company.

Here we are, entering another year where the only certainty is uncertainty. Take a deep breath and recognize all the growth you’ve achieved and the stability you’ve provided in spite of rapid change. You’re helping to build a culture of resilience and action in the face of ambiguity. 

Organizations in every industry are undergoing change initiatives, whether market-driven, customer-driven, or operational. To succeed, you’ll need employee engagement and support for well-defined, measurable goals. That’s where dashboards come in.

Michele Nichols, President of Launch Team, joined the AZO Network podcast to discuss current engineering marketing trends and challenges, as the industry makes shifts to virtual event marketing and adapts to digital transformation.

Personalized marketing messages add value. According to McKinsey, marketing’s holy grail is digital personalization at scale because “personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5-15%, and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10-30%.”

With so many product launch timelines tied to trade shows, it’s a good time to step back and consider how to add an element of excitement, unveiling, and engagement without a live event.

Whether planned or a last-minute call, the vast majority of 2021 tradeshows will be virtual events. With a variety of offerings, platforms, and formats, it’s hard to know if this is a good investment or if you’re better off diverting the funds to your own marketing and events. Here, we break down one event, Photonics West, but our recommendations and ideas may be worth considering regardless of event or industry.

I hope you have taken the time to recognize and reflect with pride on what you accomplished last year. The team you built showed resilience and grit in adapting to challenging circumstances. The hard news: your team members are now in danger of burnout. As leaders, it is our job to provide the structure and tools to help them prioritize and focus on the year ahead.

Traditional thinking dictates that a venture capitalist’s first step after investment is to strip out overhead cost and create efficiencies. But in recent years, we’ve noticed a shift in the conversation  - new leadership is now focused on leveraging and positioning the existing brand. We are working with investors and CEOs to: