Business Model Innovation Expert Kay Plantes Urges Companies to Escape Commoditization on CNBC's "The Call"

MIT-trained economist and author warns of permanent job losses and lowered profit rates after the recession ends. Business model differentiation and business model innovation may be the keys to survival.

Madison, WI (PRWEB) May 26, 2009 -- MIT-trained economist and author warns of permanent job losses and lowered profit rates after the recession ends. Business model differentiation and business model innovation may be the keys to survival.

"There is no power from consumers, business investment, or exports to drive our economy back to where we were before the recession hit. Therefore, unemployment will remain higher and earnings across the board will remain lower," commented MIT-trained economist Kay Plantes on the May 21 edition of CNBC's The Call.

Dr. Plantes (www.plantescompany.com), co-author of Beyond Price: Differentiate Your Company in Ways that Really Matter (Greenleaf Book Group, 2009) and a blogger on business model strategy, has spent the last 25 years helping companies both large and small across multiple industries unearth more profitable growth strategies. Beyond Price provides leadership teams with a guide to business model innovation. "In today's copycat economy, competition has moved from individual products and services to business models," according to Plantes.

"To drive earnings growth, leadership teams will need to innovate their company's business model to escape ruthless price competition. Commoditization was accelerating in most markets even before the recession gave price Herculean power," Plantes reports. "The old strategies for maintaining and growing margins - new products, branding and cost cutting - are no longer working," Plantes argues, "because they do nothing to reverse the forces that have accelerated commoditization." These forces include lower barriers to entry due to the Internet, easier price shopping, store brands, disruptive innovation and growth in the business services sector that creates copycat prototypes seemingly overnight.

Plantes also advised on The Call that state and local governments work with their business community and educational institutions on strategies that leverage their region's placed-based assets and create new industries and private sector jobs. Plantes once served as Chief Economist and Director of Economic Policy Development for the State of Wisconsin and remains active in Madison, Wisconsin's economic development efforts.

Learn more about business model strategy, business model differentiation, and business model change on her business model innovation blog, http://www.plantescompany.com/blog/.

Beyond Price information is available at http://beyondpricebook.com.

Kay Plantes can be reached at 608-233-8519

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