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Monthly Archives: July 2010
Manage through people, not contracts.
Contracts are the point of last resort, they define the exit, should it become necessary. Believing a written contract that details how the dynamics of an evolving relationship will be managed is as dumb as believing the lady in the … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Communication, Leadership
Tagged Alliance management, communication, Leadership, negotiation
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Qualifications and experience
The measure of effectiveness is the extent to which you get things done, and how well they turn out, not how well you theorise, discuss, and promise to “move forward”. There are lots of highly qualaified, smooth young operators out … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership, Small business
Tagged Leadership, Management, performance assessment, SME
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The last 10 yards.
Independent produce retailers appear to be resurgent, based on the quality of their offer to consumers. For years anybody who has been involved with FMCG has known about the challenge of the “last 10 yards“, the distance between a supermarkets … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Management, Sales
Tagged category management, customer, demand chain, Management, Sales, supply chain
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Afghanistan revealed
I wonder why, when no army since Alexander has managed to retain control over what is now Afghanistan, that the US and it “Allies” including Australia think they can. The leaks over the weekend on Wikileaks, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?_r=1 puts a lot of … Continue reading
Having a vision statement make you visionary?
Obviously not, but you would be surprised at how often the obvious is ignored. A carefully crafted vision statement is agreed at an annual senior executive retreat, and out away until the review next year. Nonsense. You need to live … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Leadership, Strategy
Tagged communication, Leadership, Strategy
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Democratising the net.
Most of us instinctively buy into the notion that the web has a “democratising” impact, it is a way for information to flow, to be disseminated, and this is absolutely true. However, what of the instinct of institutions, public and … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Communication, Social Media
Tagged Change, communication, Personal Rant, web stuff
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Apple bites it own hand.
It will be fascinating to watch how Apple, the masters of digital marketing, handle the latest hiccup with the antenna problems on the iPhone4. Apple has now stumbled twice in a short time, the first was the furore over the … Continue reading
Posted in Branding, Communication, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
Tagged Branding, customer, Innovation, Marketing, Sales, web stuff
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Paradox of choice.
So much choice in everything we do, isn’t that great? Maybe not. There is so much choice in most things that now we are running the risk of paralysis, procrastination, and often, we just walk away. Barry Schwartz, a psychologist … Continue reading
Posted in Category, Customers, Sales
Tagged category management, customer, Marketing, Sales
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Money is just a scoring mechanism.
People stress over money, how much they have, how hard it is to make it, what others make, how much the house is worth, how much the share portfolio has tanked, and so on. The reality is that money is … Continue reading
Wal-Mart, Woolworths and logistics.
In Australia, the major chains are seeking ways to expand their scope of activities, and staying within the Trade Practices Act is increasingly difficult given the dominance of the “big two”, and now the “rest” have further consolidated with the … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Operations
Tagged category management, Management, Operations, supply chain
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Lean manufacturing and Demand chains.
Two differing approaches to management improvement you may think? Not so. Both require extensive: * Collaboration, * Transparency, * Robust processes, * A set of values imbued through an individual organisation, and group of organisations in a demand chain, * Respect … Continue reading
Posted in Demand chains, OE, Operations
Tagged demand chain, Leadership, lean, Operations, Value chain
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“Values”. What does it mean?
“Values” is a widely misused term, one that is often a key break out subject at the annual senior management off site session, subject to sage pronouncements, then usually ignored. Having participated, and more recently facilitated many of these sessions over … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Leadership
Tagged Leadership, performance assessment, value
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Innovation in Afghanistan.
Straying from my usual “beat” I read the Rolling Stone article that caused the downfall of General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan. It seems to me that he was fired, not because he was insubordinate, but because he … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Innovation, Leadership
Tagged change management, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
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The power of candor
Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, the worlds largest manufacturing company recently made some unflattering remarks about the Chinese and US leadership, and has been widely pilloried. What happened to freedom of speech? We seem to have become immune to the … Continue reading
Fact and hyperbole.
It is often pretty easy recognise marketing hyperbole when we see it, particularly in a category where we have some knowledge. However, in a category where we have no knowledge, it probably is not as easy to pick the fact … Continue reading
Posted in Branding, Communication, Customers, Sales
Tagged Branding, category management, communication, customer, Marketing, Sales
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Statistics and thinking
A statistical analysis should give a black and white answer, and it does, but the answer is only as good as the information that is used, and the manner in which it is used. It follows then that the application … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Personal Rant
Tagged communication, Management, negotiation, Personal Rant
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To improve health, get Lean
In the last federal budget there was money allocated to the task of digitising health records allocated, and there was some pretty unedifying comment on the amount, the progress to date, and the implications on privacy. What dross. Australian health … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, OE, Strategy
Tagged Change, lean, Operations, performance assessment
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The original takes the premium
The easier it is to quantify, the less it will be worth. This appears to be a pretty harsh judgment, but the reality is that if you can quantify and standardise something, it can be copied. This is the case, … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
Tagged customer, Innovation, Marketing
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Peak oil?
We are pretty familiar with the notion of “Peak Oil” the point at which the consumption of oil is greater than the rate of discovering new sources, giving us a doomsday outcome at a calculatable point in the future, but … Continue reading
Walk and talk marketing
Those who say one thing and do another have always been at risk of being found out. Now, the capabilities of the net make it virtually inevitable, with the downside risk to your brand being multiplied by the probability of … Continue reading
StrategyAudit 