StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |Plant-Based Meat|How Close Are We to Developing Plant-Based Meat?

How Close Are We to Developing Plant-Based Meat?

StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |Plant-Based Meat|How Close Are We to Developing Plant-Based Meat?Eating plant-based meat isn’t just about being vegan. If you take the visitor and exhibitor data from Global Table, it will show a diverse set of tastes for each group. Health and food variety play a big role in the rise of plant-based meat. But is it here to stay? And how far along is the food industry with producing a suitable replacement?

It’s Already Here

Several companies have gone headfirst into the plant-based meat industry. This isn’t a flash in the pan, and led to a strong showing in new food innovations. The rush to create the perfect product happened around the same time that being healthy became profitable. Instead of making something that only appeals to a specific group of people, companies realized that plant-based meat can be an addition, or an actual replacement to real meat. There is still a long way to go in finding the right balance between healthy and tasty. While consumers are breaking down doors to get the Impossible Whopper, it is still considered a small minority (and star) of the entire plant-based meat industry. The B2B media campaign by PPR&C highlights some of the best features of pushing plant-based meat. Get to know more about plant protein and its benefits.

Branding Is Everything

The Impossible Whopper had a great marketing push due to its whopper roots. It already started on third base, while every other plant-based meat product had to start on first. This is the biggest challenge in the food industry for any non-established brand that wants to leave their mark.

Grocery store brands that have been selling plant-based meat products for years. After fighting for shelf space with meat products, brands began to be displayed side by side with their meat-based competitors. That made a big difference in certain areas where marketing a plant-based meat product doesn’t really stand out. Now, when you shop for meat, plant-based meat products are displayed in the same row. For the normal shopper mentality, this makes the difference between a buy or a pass. Without a large social media or marketing push, it is easy to miss some of the better choices in a store isle.

Pricing

Global leaders in the industry understand that pricing is the biggest roadblock to the mass acceptance of plant-based meat products. Healthy food has always been more expensive than regular food. When fast food chains add plant-based meat to their menu, it doesn’t suffer from a price hike. This makes it an attractive option to have with a diet soda. When shoppers go into a store or online website to find a similar fix, they are met with inconsistent pricing. This is confusing, but there are several reasons for this.

Plant-based meat brands uses natural, high quality ingredients. It is no different than the price hike issued on organic vegetables and produce. The other reason has to do with store placement, which once again, requires smart placement with regular meat. Companies that spend more for natural ingredients don’t get a discount on shelving space, so the price is sometimes passed onto the consumer.

Pricing woes can be avoided by buying from a plant-based meat website, or getting on a compatible food subscription plan. The awareness raised by the Global Table event touched on some of these issues, and offered some great alternative selling methods for new and existing companies.

Wrap Up

This is the best time to try plant-based meat and similar products. They work well together, and should fit the palate of a casual eater or hardcore foodie. Look past the normal options if you want to try something a little bit different, yet familiar.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article | Today’s Battle for Data - in the Wind and the Cloud | Big Data

Today’s Battle for Data – in the Wind and the Cloud

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article | Today’s Battle for Data - in the Wind and the Cloud | Big DataData is the new currency and often the point of strategic control in many industries. Companies are attempting to control data in order to monetize what the data can do for them. Take this example from windmill technology as an illustration:

Windmill technology has dramatically improved over the past few decades. For example, GE has developed blades and rotors that sense the wind direction and adjust a windmill’s tilt/shift in order to optimize its ability to catch the wind. In addition, many windmill “farms” optimize the way they work together since one windmill’s direction and tilt affects the downwind performance of all other windmills. Because a group of windmills operating together is more efficient than individual windmills operating separately, when one windmill fails, the efficiency of the entire farm can be adversely affected.

Industry leaders, including GE and Siemens, have developed their own optimization and monitoring services that use the data coming off the windmills to remotely monitor performance and proactively do repairs to maximize windmill uptime. However, the market for windmills is fragmented with a few large players and a series of smaller players — many of whom are lower-cost manufacturers from Asia and don’t have the scale and/or capabilities to develop and maintain such services.

In response to GE and Siemens’ control of this space, a few ingenious companies are in the process of installing – for free – sensors in both new and existing windmills. These sensors monitor motor vibration and temperature so that they can predict motor failure before it happens. The data are broadcast to the cloud in real time and predictive failure analytics are conducted on the data. Once a motor’s spec goes out of tolerance zones, a team is dispatched to repair the motor before it fails – not only to maximize the “up time” of the windmill, but also to provide peak efficiency for the entire farm.

This enables the smaller players to compete effectively with the larger firms. For example, for smaller Chinese manufacturers trying to compete with GE and Siemens, being able to provide this service is often the difference between making the sale and losing it.

So, how do you make money installing sensors for free? The key is owning exclusive access to the data generated via the sensors and leveraging it by selling higher-margin maintenance contracts back to windmill manufacturers (for newly built windmills) and to farm owners (for retrofitted, existing windmills).

The smaller players are more than willing to allow the sensors to be installed to grant access to the data and pay for higher margin maintenance since they can’t efficiently do this themselves (due to their size and scale). Meanwhile, they gain the ability to compete with the GE and Siemens of the world on services while simultaneously maintaining their cost advantages. In addition, they can eliminate downtime risk via offloading this to its sensor supplier. Therefore, it’s a win-win arrangement for both parties.

StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures eBook


Indeed, this is the modern-day equivalent of the “give away the razor and sell the razor blade” story. Today, the razor equivalent (the sensors) is only of value because of the system’s necessity to interoperate and the ability to monitor it remotely via the cloud and predict failure before it happens. In today’s world, it’s often beneficial to give away the hardware but own the data.

As you design a way to monetize your data-collection system, keep these key principals in mind:

  1. Benefit.The offering needs to provide a clear benefit to both you and your customer.
  2. Incentive.The giving away of the hardware to access the data can’t be for the purpose of simply selling the data to a third party. Rather, access to the data has to enable you to provide better service at a higher price point than rivals. Your unique access to the data makes it so that your customers want to buy from you since, even at a higher price point, you save them money, time and/or resources.
  3. Don’t negotiate the “back end” on the “front end.”In the windmill example, had sensor manufacturers attempted to require maintenance contracts before installing the sensors, they’d likely have received substantial pushback for anything that cost them more. However, once the sensors were in place, the added benefit or performance-based maintenance was clear.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Dr. William PutsisDr. William Putsis is a Professor of Marketing, Economics and Business Strategy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and a Faculty Fellow for Executive Programs at Yale University. He is also president and CEO of Chestnut Hill Associates, a strategy consulting firm, and founder of the software company, CADEO Economics, which automates his data modeling-based strategy development processes. His new book is The Carrot and the Stick: Leveraging Strategic Control for Growth (Rotman-UTP Publishing, Feb. 3, 2020). Learn more at www.putsis.com or www.chestnuthillconsulting.com.

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 3 Lowest Cost States to Start an LLC | Incorporation

3 Lowest Cost States to Start an LLC

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 3 Lowest Cost States to Start an LLC | Incorporation

When you are starting a business, you have to make every dollar count. You may have no idea how much revenue you will bring in at first – and you know you are going to have to work out some kinks before your business becomes more stable. So, it makes sense to try to find the lowest cost state to form your LLC. Of course, there are multiple ways to measure “lowest cost” when it comes to forming a business. Are we talking about which state has the lowest LLC formation fees, or are we talking about which state is the most affordable to do business in?

There are many states that try to make doing business affordable, from Texas to Florida and throughout the country. But there are some that try to go the extra mile, either by making taxes extremely low, licenses and filing fees low, or both. Since you may have your own idea of what “affordable” means, we will examine this question from two angles. First, we can look at which three states are best for overall affordability for business, then we will take a quick look at which three states have the lowest LLC formation fees.

3 Most Affordable States to Form an LLC

1. Wyoming

The state of Wyoming does a lot to make starting a business as easy and attractive as possible. For one thing, it has a 0 percent corporate tax rate and a 0 percent individual income tax rate. That’s right, you don’t have to worry about paying either corporate state tax or individual state income tax. You will still be hit with federal taxes, but Wyoming is easy on businesses as far as taxes go. The effective property tax rate is also extremely low – at .61 percent. When you consider that the average property tax rate in the country is 1.19 percent, the affordability of the Wyoming tax system is readily apparent.

The sales tax rate in Wyoming is also quite low at 4 percent. That means your customers will not be as likely to experience sticker shock when they buy products from you since the sales tax they see will not be too high.

2. Nevada

Nevada is another one of the most popular states to form an LLC because it offers multiple tax advantages to businesses that make the state home. Just like Wyoming, Nevada has a 0 percent corporate tax rate and a 0 percent individual income tax rate. Your business won’t have to pay corporate state taxes and you won’t have to pay state income taxes. Again, you will still face federal taxes, but every little bit helps. The effective property tax rate in Nevada is also extremely low at .77 percent.

The sales tax rate in Nevada is higher than Wyoming at 6.85 percent.

3. South Dakota

South Dakota also strives to set itself apart as a business haven by making its taxes quite low. You will find a 0 percent corporate tax rate and a 0 percent individual income tax rate in the state and an effective property tax rate of 1.32 percent. So, it can be more expensive to own property – like your brick and mortar store – in South Dakota than Wyoming or Nevada – but if you don’t own property in the state then the property taxes are less of a concern for your business.

The sales tax rate in South Dakota is 4.50 percent.

Cheapest LLC Formation Fees

If you are just looking for states with the lowest fees for forming an LLC, you should consider the following locations:

  • Arizona. You only have to pay $50 to file your LLC formation documents in Arizona. Even better, there is no annual fee and no report due each year.
  • Missouri. The fee for filing in Missouri is higher than some other states at $105, but you don’t have to pay an annual fee each year nor do you have to file a report. That makes Missouri quite low to form an LLC in over the long-term.
  • New Mexico. The fee for filing an LLC in New Mexico is only $50 and there is no annual fee and no report due. That makes New Mexico just as affordable as Arizona.
  • Kentucky. The state of Kentucky has the lowest filing fee of any state in the country. They only charge $40 for you to file. However, they do expect you to pay $15 every year to keep your LLC official with the state.

Where Should You File Your LLC?

When you start looking more closely at your options for forming an LLC, you realize that there are plenty of different states that offer attractive deals. Some are extremely affordable to do business in and others make it very cheap to file your LLC. So, what should your main priority be?

The answer is, “It depends.” Deciding where to form your LLC is a personal decision that needs to be made based on what is most important to you. For absolute convenience, there is probably nothing better than forming your LLC in your home state. That’s because it is often simpler to handle paperwork and deal with government entities when you can go down the street to do so. But if you want to save money on filing fees or gain tax advantages, you may want to consider forming an LLC in a state that offers you the most of what you want for your business.

StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |interesting facts about water|10 Interesting Facts About Water That'll Leave You Astounded

10 Interesting Facts About Water That’ll Leave You Astounded

StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |interesting facts about water|10 Interesting Facts About Water That'll Leave You AstoundedEveryone knows that water is critical for our existence. It covers approximately 71 percent of our planet and makes up around 60 percent of the human body. We use it to stay hydrated, keep clean, and as a fun way to cool off on a hot summer day.

Did you know you can also use water to impress your friends? It’s true! Learn some of the most interesting facts about water and you can “wow” them with just how smart you are.

Sound like a fun goal? Keep reading! You’ll be the smartest person in the room before you know it.

10 Interesting Facts About Water You Probably Didn’t Know

Some facts about water, like the ones mentioned above, are pretty cool. But, they’re also common knowledge. If you want to look really smart, you need to learn some amazing facts about water that are a little more obscure.

These 10 pieces of water trivia are a great start.

1. Most of the Earth’s Water Isn’t Drinkable

It’s true! Only about 1 percent of the water on Earth is drinkable in its present state. Although much of the planet is covered in water, it’s almost all saltwater.

In fact, only 2.5 percent of the Earth’s water is freshwater and 69 percent of it is trapped in glaciers and ice caps. While glaciers do melt and release some water during the summer months, it’s still not enough to bring this number above 1 percent.

2. Water Can Actually Cut Metal!

With a powerful-enough stream, you can actually use water to cut through metal! A waterjet is a tool used in machine shops to slice through metal and leave a smooth, clean edge. It does this by harnessing the power of pressure – a waterjet has about 30 times the pressure of a typical power washer.

Other waterjet cutting benefits include simplicity, accuracy, and the versatility to cut through other objects like tile and glass.

3. Americans Use an Average of 300 Gallons of Water a Day

In the United States, the average family uses about 300 gallons of water per day!

The biggest culprit? Flushing the toilet. This accounts for 24% of our daily water use.

The other ways we use water each day include:

  • Showers (20%)
  • Faucet (19%)
  • Washing Clothes (17%)
  • Leaks/drips (12%)
  • “Other” (8%)

An average of 30% of our water use occurs outdoors, mainly through activities like watering our lawns and topping off our pools. The other 70% of water use occurs from the indoor activities listed above.

4. Half of All Bottled Water Is Just Tap Water

Are you a water snob? If you prefer bottled water, you might be completely wasting your money. Turns out, about 50 percent of bottled water is just tap water that has been purified.

You can do the planet (and your wallet!) a big favor by just getting a filter or purifier for your home and drinking the water that comes from the tap.

5. The First Water Pipes in the U.S. Were Made from Logs

Water technology sure has come a long way! You might not know that the first water pipes in the U.S. were made from hollowed-out logs. Artifacts have recently been found that prove that this was a common system in larger U.S. cities back in the 1700s.

6. It Takes a Lot of Water to Make the Things We Need

Water is necessary to create almost all of the things that humans want and need. The amount required is sometimes astounding. Check out these facts:

  • It takes 37.5 gallons of water to make one egg
  • You’ll need 146 gallons of water to make a pound of corn
  • It takes 1,847 gallons to produce one pound of beef
  • The average amount of water used to make one pair of jeans is 2,900 gallons

7. Much of the World is in a Water Crisis

It might surprise you to learn that 785 million people (one in nine!) around the globe don’t have access to clean, safe water. In addition, 2 billion people don’t have an effective sanitation system.

This has caused a serious health crisis. Nearly a million people die each year from diseases related to water, sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases.

8. Women Carry Most of the World’s Water

In many countries, women and girls carry the responsibility of retrieving the water needed for daily living. In countries like sub-Saharan Africa, women spend a collective 16 million hours collecting water every day.

In Kenya, water collection accounts for approximately 4.5 hours of a woman’s average week. When women have to spend so much time meeting a basic need, it cuts into time that they could be working, expanding their education, or getting much-needed rest.

9. Water is Heavy!

If you’ve ever tried to carry a bucket full of water, you know that it’s pretty heavy. Although there are factors that can impact the weight of water – like temperature, atmospheric pressure, and gravity – on average, one gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds.

10. Frozen Water Weighs Less Than Liquid Water

The fact above only applies to water in its liquid state. Frozen water, also known as ice, weighs less by volume than liquid water. That’s why ice cubes float in your drink!

Keep Getting Smarter Every Day!

Now that you know the most interesting facts about water, you probably feel much smarter already. But, don’t stop there! We have plenty of great articles that can expand your knowledge even further.

Take a few more minutes to browse through our blog, then bookmark it and check back often. This way, you’ll never miss out on our best content.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |traditional vs digital marketing|Traditional vs Digital Marketing: Why You Don't Have to Choose

Traditional vs Digital Marketing: Why You Don’t Have to Choose

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |traditional vs digital marketing|Traditional vs Digital Marketing: Why You Don't Have to ChooseTraditional vs digital marketing, which is better? Neither is. The fact is, you should be using both.

Used right, your traditional marketing campaigns will boost your digital marketing success and vice versa. The only way to achieve maximum marketing success is to use both strategies.

How is this accomplished? Find out below.

The following guide will explain the relationship between these two different marketing strategies. It also offers practical tips and examples of how to make these two beasts cooperate for greater success than you’ve ever seen!
Read on to learn all about it.

Printed Links

Lesson 1: stop thinking “links” are just for digital content. They’re not.

All of your printed ads should always “link” your audience to your digital campaigns in some way. We’ll explain with a few practical examples below.

Print With QR Codes

With QR technology, your magazine ads and advertising signs within public reach can literally link to a digital advertising platform. You can and probably should include a QR code on every printed ad your audience can aim a phone at.

What should these codes do? More important is what they can do. They can fulfill any digital CTA you can imagine.
“Scan here to join!” “Order here to get yours in 3 days!” “Download the app and get 10% off your next visit!”

Besides, why wouldn’t you do this? People love to scan codes for digital goodies. According to recent statistics, 11 million US households will scan a QR code this year.

Geotarget Your Digital Campaigns Through Print

One of the best applications of this technology is the ability to geotarget your digital campaigns via your printed ads. Simply have billboards and sign ads in a specific location point traffic to one of your digital ad campaigns.

This way, you can have your digital campaign reach the geographically-specific audience you want to target. Or, at least, it significantly increases your chances beyond locally-targeted online ads alone.

Furthermore, you can combine digital geotargeting with your billboards for a marketing double-whammy. That is, set your geotargeted digital ads to display on mobile devices in the same vicinity as your billboard to make sure you don’t miss anyone.

Alternative Digital Invites in Print

With or without QR codes, you can use your print ads to get the word out about your SMS marketing club. As an alternative to a QR invitation, simply print a text code. Example: “Text YES to 0403 for more information/to receive exclusive discounts/to hear the latest updates.”

You can also refer your print ad audience to your web address or YouTube channel. Or post a hashtag phrase at the bottom of your poster to link it to your social media marketing strategies.

From Your Website to Their Door

Now, let’s try linking in the opposite direction. Direct mail marketing gives you a better chance of marketing success with your website traffic. Specifically, it gives them one more option of how to receive your marketing messages.

Next to your website’s email newsletter signup, include an invitation for your printed newsletter. You can also offer catalogs, weekly sales ads, coupon books, or magazines with exciting content related to your brand and niche. You may even want to partner up with one or more other companies on a mutually beneficial publication.

Traditional vs Digital Marketing: It’s Not a Choice

“Traditional vs digital marketing” is a marketing myth. It’s an agreement, not a competition.

Stop choosing one or the other. Choose both. To truly excel at marketing, keep this guide and follow these tips.
If you found this guide helpful, click below to share on social media.