When I think of monopoly I think of a mustachioed man with a nice hat and a highland terrier.

I also think of family arguments and Christmas flashbacks; Monopole mon amour, directed by Resnais…

Yet, those aren’t the only monopoly connotations you should be worried about. The New York Times recently reported that a whopping 77% of mobile social traffic is owned by Facebook, 74% of the ebook market is Amazon, and Google owns 88% percent of the search advertising market.

They aren’t the only monopolies around and they’re only in specific sectors. A report from eMarketer showed that in 2016 Facebook and Google collectively accounted for 57% of all mobile advertising – and that figure is rising. Maybe it’s not a monopoly at all, but a duopoly?

Market position isn’t static, it’s dynamic. Monopolies form and fade, doing so in response to specific factors and environments.

In this article, we’ll look at the rise and fall of some monopolistic scenarios and try to learn a little about how this current dominance may look moving forward.

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Toronto-based iQ Food Co is a long time user of Process Street and its operations are being driven forward with the aid of our platform. We spoke with Arthur Bekerman, the COO, about how iQ Food Co implement Process Street in their business.

The iQ Food Co Story

iQ Food Co is a company deeply embedded with an ethos. They devote themselves to the promotion of balance and sustainability and feel that everyone should have access to the healthy and vibrant food they provide. More than half of the produce iQ Food Co buys is sourced from within 100 kilometers and they serve it up in balanced colorful meals for customers across their 5 locations.

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Uber is seemingly always in the news for something.

Right now the big stories are:

• An Uber-rival from China may be about to land $6 billion in investment from SoftBank.
• Uber wants to make 10% of its Oregon fleet electric by 2019.
• Uber aims for a future of driverless electric cars.
• Long distance haulage may be the next step for Uber’s expansion.
• Italy considers banning Uber in recent court case.
  and…
• Lyft capitalizes as Uber’s connection to Trump administration angers progressive voters.

It appears Uber is everywhere.

But how did Uber grow to such a large degree, particularly with laws and governments and embedded markets in their way? How did they end up with a potential valuation of $68 billion?

In this article, we’ll look at three key things:

1. Where did Uber come from and what is its philosophy?
2. How does Uber conquer a city?
3. What steps does Uber take to recruit new drivers?

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“I won’t get distracted”, you tell yourself, “I’ve got a deadline – I’ll be fine”.

Next thing you know you’re looking at the goals-per-game statistics for second division Scottish soccer team Raith Rovers from their 1976/77 season.

I know because it happened to me. It was 1.15 goals-per-game. In the league only – not including cups.

This is why I’ve had to drill myself to be able to work effectively, and why I’m telling you how to avoid distractions today.

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We’re always looking for innovative ways to drive sales.

One simple step which people often overlook is the potential purchasing power of your existing audience. It can be expensive to market to people who know nothing about your product, but less expensive to increase the lifetime value of your existing customers.

When Facebook first released their custom audiences advertising feature, results poured in rapidly. One e-commerce company, as reported at the time by TechCrunch, targeted their email list and recorded a 43 percent increase in sign-up conversion and a 30 percent decrease of their cost-per-lead.

The Washington Post’s advertising arm, SocialCode, also reported a 15 percent lower cost per new fan after using custom audiences.

Using custom audiences and Facebook retargeting to activate people who have previously shown interest in your product is a strategy which works.

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Recent elections have hogged the headlines due to their rhetoric and their politics.

However, one consistent theme across both the Trump victory and the Brexit success was their use of advanced marketing techniques.

These campaigns utilized the power of emotion to drive their narratives and leveraged the complexities of Big Data to direct those messages at segmented groups with devastating effect.

The recent victories were not merely political successes, but demonstrations of the immense potential of advanced marketing and advertising methods.

We’ll look at three key areas in this article:

• Why are emotions so powerful in decision making?
• What is psychometric testing – the Trump and Brexit campaigns’ marketing method – and what can it tell us about our audience?
• How do we turn theory into actionable techniques?

The world of marketing is changing. Don’t get left behind.

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According to Atlassian, unnecessary meetings cost the US economy $37b a year in wasted salary costs.

In fact, per the same study, half of all meetings are considered “wasted time”.

What differentiates a successful meeting from a failed one? How do we make sure our meetings are consistently successful?

In this article, we’ll discuss the fundamentals of how to run a successful meeting; the 7 key steps advocated by MIT professor Neal Hartman.

And we’ll share with you our internal method for running meetings in a structured manner with Process Street.

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It’s not always easy to know whether your team is doing everything you ask them to. How do you know everything is on track? Are you sure your team is taking care of every responsibility?

Here’s the worrying thing:

According to the American Management Association, 21% of companies believe that 30-50% of their employees shirk from their responsibilities. This is stupidly high. So, we need to see how it can be resolved and take action right now.

Accountability in the workplace, in short, refers to your team members taking responsibility for their actions and for the tasks they’ve been assigned.

In this post, I’m going to cover 4 key areas which pertain to managing the accountability of employees:

• Communication and company culture
• Productivity
• Clear processes and workflows
• Oversight

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Workflows are the building blocks of your business.

Whatever business you’re in, workflows are your business.

They act as representations of your whole operation. They can be used to smash inefficiencies and increase profits.

…But what are workflows, and why do they really matter?

Why should they be documented, and how can Process Street help you optimize them?

Let’s find out.

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From September 1st 2015 to June 23rd 2016 the polls were clear that Britain would vote to remain in the EU.

According to the Financial Times, there were only two weeks over that period where the Leave campaign were ahead.

Yet, when the results came through, British voters had opted to leave the EU with 51.9% voting out.

How did the leave campaign strategy overcome the clear gap held for the year leading up to the vote?

A clear narrative and a range of big promises?

Well, yes. But also by selling those narratives and promises through a slick targeted marketing campaign powered by social media and big data.

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