Business 3.0 - Small Business Can

Business 3.0 I just finished reading “marketing 3.0” by Philip Kotler. I am sure all of you who have studied marketing are familiar with Kotler. He wrote THE textbook on marketing.

Great book. Spot on. Talks about things such as “human spirit marketing”, about of the importance authenticity, and identifies purpose and culture as the main business drivers. It talks about mind, heart, spirit, business transformation and brand integrity.

I can see how people are making puke gestures and wondering if Philip has started to wear sandals, woolly socks and flowers in his hair. Not at all. He makes a compelling case for re-thinking marketing and business in a 3.0 world.

In a 3.0 world everybody is connected (social media!), is ultra competitive and the power will be is with consumers with an increasing awareness of depleting and increasingly scarce resources.

As a result companies will have to think triple bottom line (profit, planet, people). Not only to maintain and develop the brand, but also to capture the opportunities that sustainable business practice will deliver. And last but not least will impact on your future cost productivity.

You can take it as a given that your cost in areas such as energy and transport will go up in the foreseeable future. In fact it makes no business sense at all, not to embrace sustainable business practices.

The only choice you have is whether you be quick in adopting the triple bottom line approach, learn and develop a competitive advantage (such as companies in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Holland) or decide to wait. In my view waiting is business suicide. I think Philip Kotler would agree.

Marketing 3.0 is available from the IMI Knowledge Centre Library.

	SmallBusinessCanis an online community which the IMI supports . It aims to help small businesses and entrepreneurs connect with each other, to create and share business knowledge, insights, experience and the contact networks to generate new growth for their own business and create a new beginning for the economy. Ron Immick is a co-founder.