David Hood
Commercial Director – Edinburgh, Central Scotland, Dundee, Perth, Stirling
David saw that the business world needed a definitive needs-to-offer process – a simple robust way for companies to better align with their markets, create true and meaningful value, that resonated with Customer and Clients giving a lasting competitive edge. He has now created and delivered it.
The business world, strangely, has various ‘quality standards’ that improve the inside of an organisation, but no proper process that evidentially uncovers, defines, creates, crafts, develops, and deploys products or services based on external customer, client, or market needs. It can now.
David Hood Results
The following examples show a marked change – a meaningful change that disrupted and firmly placed the organisation ‘to the customer’s side’ and made them critical rather than just looking different.
Marketing, standing out, being seen, and known to be of value and valued by your market means more than sexing up your offer, or copying the latest fad or management theory – we all need a meaningful differentiator that makes us critical to the markets we serve. That’s the difference between merely surviving and thriving.
Pricing
Challenged the way the entire industry priced the offer. Five year results (£5M) delivered in two years.
Employee Engagement
In an industry where customer complaints were the norm, David moved the client to near-zero complaints.
New system
Developed a system that better informed clients raised the status of the team and resulted in doubling of turnover from £1M to £2M in just 12 months.
Commercial skills and expertise
Expert Skills: Marketing, Commercial Strategy, Pricing, Value Development, USP
At the top of marketing thinking and practice for decades, introduced the Modern Marketing Mix and the first true-needs analysis and development process.
A keen sense of where you can make a sustained and real difference that raises you, head and shoulders above competitors.
Cuts all your ‘business development’ options down to one or two singular best advantages and messages to make you stand out.
Industry and sector experience
David has worked across a huge range of sectors over the last 30 years. Industries he has worked in include digital, Electronic, Engineering, Life Sciences, Publishing and education to name a few.
Digital
Product and market development, a pioneer in digital marketing and communications.
Engineering
From hard design to processing, finishing, and raw material to finished product.
Electronics
Product development and support, alignment with market need.
David Hood background
David is a Business Author, Competitiveness Specialist, and Founder of the Edinburgh Institute™.
He has made it his ambition and quest to find the best way to ensure that organisations create and sell what the market welcomes and needs. He has developed new practical processes for Competitive, Compelling, and Collaborative Advantage, through the Edinburgh Institute™.
He started out as a Life Scientist, Industrial Chemist, then moved from the lab bench to commercial specialist in electronic engineering Product Management, and Marketing. He is past Chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s International Technology Group ‘CIMTech International’, modernised the ‘Ps of marketing’ and personally challenging the profession to improve, modernise and stop the noise and merely following fads.
He previously served on several industries and membership groups such as competitiveScotland, Global Marketing Network, Customer Value Creation International, and Editorial and Advisory Boards of Global CMO Magazine, the Journal of Creating Value, and Customer Value Creation International. He developed, presented, and delivered the ‘Competitive SME 20 Minute Masterclass’ series with TalkTalk Business, and in-company workshops to improve competitive advantage.
David wrote the seminal, practical, business books ‘The Marketing Manifesto’ for the profession, and ‘Competitive SME’ for the smaller businesses (as part of the EU-wide futureSME project) and ‘Direct!’ the critical way to powerful direct mail marketing.
He is currently working with the Scotcoin project to establish it as Scotland’s citizen-centric, socially-minded, ‘digital currency for fairness’.