Thanks for stopping by with the comment.
Marketing & Innovation are the drivers of commercial, nonprofit, and governmental activity success.

In any scenario, marketers have to make sure their offering is authentic for one, really makes a difference, is competitive in terms of price/value, and is well communicated & promoted (otherwise no sales and widespread customer adoption). Revenue & profit sure are drivers, but sometimes a product offering’s market potential is a lot of wishful thinking, perhaps based on trends and fads. That’s what we have to be wary of though, so marketers aren’t obviously jumping on some bandwagon while greenwashing their offering….thereby undermining this whole movement (albeit to a small degree).

Secondly, even if the best intent is there to make a difference and offer the public a great product, it has to make business sense and people have to want it…otherwise it’s just a waste of time and capital. But hey, that’s just the nature of business…taking risk in order to make money.

Excellent! Makes one think, doesn’t it?

Buon compleanno, Mario. Mille di questi giorni e piu’.

I can’t really cast any judgment on them without data. Had thought about speculating on potential woes that befell them, or circumstances that contributed. I would really like to learn more down the road, and get a balanced HBR-style case study analysis.

Being that this is now the comment section, I will proceed.

Upon scanning their styles, SKUs, and price points, it appeared to me that many items lacked the fashionability to justify their premium retail prices. In the seminar I attended, it was noted that their fabrics alone were 15-20% more expensive than competitors. With a higher COGS (Cost of Goods Sold), it becomes imperative to have very lean operations. I suspect that was very much the case, because my impression was operationally efficiency as a top priority.

This then makes me wonder about their sales and cash flow; obviously very proprietary information. What would their quick or acid test ratio look like? An additional consideration, and the one Nau points to, is funding. Here, we’re looking at debt and equity. Do we have enough to operate? How does the path to profitability look? Where are the owners’ limits and conditions upon which they decide to dissolve the firm, whatever the financial situation?

That last question is morally important because a firm should let itself die responsibly, without causing extended injury and pain on its stakeholders and publics. That’s enlightened selfishness. To pull the trigger at the right time, for everyone’s best interests. Profitability is important for all the reasons you pointed out Cam.

Businesses, no matter how well intentioned, are inherently immoral if they are not profitable. This cannot be lost in the equation of being otherwise eco-friendly.

Being profitable allows a business to hire employees. To reduce poverty. To reduce the financial burden of aging by providing a steady and reliable stream of income to future and current (if a public company) retirees.

No need to worry, though. It won’t be long before someone comes to take the empty space they left in the marketplace. Their failure can be someone else’s lesson.

What a wonderful quote and what an amazing blog you have going. I just subscribed to your feed and found myself struggling with where/how to minimize you into one of my RSS reader categories. It was a battle. Are you in the design (UX, UCD, product design) bucket? Or the marketing bucket? Or the insight to innovation bucket?

I wish I had these challenges more often. Keep up the amazing thinking and sharing!