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Monthly Archives: September 2011
Almost gone
The news that Fosters will be sold to SA Miller Brewing represents almost the last Australian food and beverage business with a global brand has now disappeared. I say almost, as I can think of no other, but some may … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Leadership, Management, Operations, Personal Rant, Small business
Tagged Change, change management, Leadership, Management, Operations, Personal Rant, retailer, Strategy
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The most valuable question
Complexity is strangling us, paralysis by analysis has become pretty widespread, and the paradox is that we are all trying to do more with less. In that context, creating an environment where everyone can contribute to the maximum of their … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Leadership, Strategy
Tagged change management, collaboration, communication, Leadership, lean, negotiation
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The APP report, a great idea squandered
Years ago as a senior manager in a large organisation, part of the monthly routine was to write an APP report: Achievements, Problems, Plans, kept to an A4 page, used as a scene setter for the more detailed monthly report. … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management
Tagged Leadership, lean, Management, managing yourself, performance assessment
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Carbon emotionalism
Am I the only one, or are others getting as sick as I am of the shallow, cliché ridden utterances of both sides of this “debate”? The government is pushing their carbon tax, which will become law on July 1 … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Marketing, Personal Rant
Tagged Change, climate change, Leadership, Marketing, performance assessment, Personal Rant, Politics
3 Comments
The organisation as a village.
Thinking about they way organisations work, the “industrial” model of hierarchical functional management, expertise and knowledge hoarded, and little transparency of effort and outcomes is way past its use buy date. We are social animals, who evolved in a village, … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Strategy
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, Leadership, managing yourself, Strategy
2 Comments
SME’s take heart!
Ask a SME manager in packaged goods, “would you like a phone call from Woolworths ordering stock of your new product for every store in the country?” and you will most likely get a tear with the nodded head. Enter … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Customers, Innovation, Small business, Social Media
Tagged Branding, communication, customer, Innovation, Marketing, negotiation, Sales, SME, Social Media
1 Comment
To train or not to train.
One of my clients, a modest sized business inhabiting a narrowing but quite deep niche of manufacturing, has over a period of time put considerable resources into training their essenial technical people to be expert in the fields vital to … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership, Management, Operations, Small business
Tagged managing yourself, Operations, performance assessment, SME, value
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“Dad Dancing”
What a great term, coined by Euan Semple, to describe the phenomenon of older (largely) male senior executives pretending they have “got” social media. Like many others, I spend a lot of time trying to persuade people of the value … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Management, Social Media
Tagged change management, Management, Social Media
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Reference class forecasting
People routinely forecast optimistically, they under-forecast costs, and over-forecast outcomes. We have all seen it happen repeatedly in businesses and the public sector, most of us have seen it on personal level. Demand planning is the core of effective operational … Continue reading
Posted in Demand chains, Operations, Strategy
Tagged demand chain, lean, Operations, performance assessment, supply chain, Value chain
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SME’s in FMCG in a tight spot.
SME’s in the Australian food industry are up against it if they see their futures as suppliers to the major chains, who require a combination of utter commitment, globally competitive costs, and supply certainty requiring substantial scale and the attendant … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Management, Sales, Small business
Tagged change management, customer, Marketing, Operations, Personal Rant, retailer, SME, supply chain
1 Comment
When marketing doesn’t matter
Rubbish you say, marketing always matters. Well, the next time you try and get some sense out of Optus or Telstra when you have anything that does not fit into an easily packaged Q&A form for someone in Bangalore who … Continue reading
How do I make money from Social Media?
About the most commonly asked question on the net is how to make money,” how do I monetarise this great idea”?. To my mind, it is the wrong question. The right one is “How do I deepen the relationship of … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, communication, customer, Marketing, Sales, Social Media
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Playing digital catch-up
Coles & Woolies are starting out to reduce the gap between their marketing practices and those of the trendsetter, Tesco in the UK. I guess this is not surprising given they are both watching Tesco very closely, and Coles management … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Innovation, Social Media, Strategy
Tagged Change, change management, Innovation, Politics, Social Media, Strategy
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The 7 ways to build collaboration
Sharing “content” is the lifeblood of social media, as well as the older disciplines of collaboration, successful negotiation, leadership, even blue collar engagement on the factory floor. With a bit of tweaking the ideas contained in this post from Social … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Communication, Social Media
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, communication, negotiation, SME, Social Media
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More on QR codes
A while ago I wrote a short post about QR codes, saying I thought they had the potential to change the way we think about marketing. Subsequently I came across this post and video on the Social Media Examiner site, … Continue reading
Posted in Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Tagged communication, customer, Marketing, Social Media, web stuff
1 Comment
Heinz a microcosm of Australian FMCG.
The mulitnational Heinz has been in the news a bit recently. First, they announce a restructure, which means closing plants, and consolidating production, in this case to NZ, and to a remaining Australian plant that will get a bit of … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Management, Marketing, Operations, Small business
Tagged Branding, Management, Marketing, negotiation, retailer, Sales
4 Comments
12 facebook tips for SME’s
Chatting to a very successful distributor during the week at Sydney’s Fine Food trade show, he said he simply did not “get” facebook and Twitter as marketing tools. “I will wait till my 14 year old daughter gets interested in … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Communication, Customers, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Tagged Branding, communication, customer, Marketing, retailer, SME, Social Media
1 Comment
Can Google do it?
Googles purchase of Motorola poses an interesting management challenge. To date, Google has been a producer of software, an intellectually intensive activity that can be accomplished anywhere the brain is located. Manufacturing is a different beast. Suddenly you have factories, … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, Management, Operations, Strategy
Tagged Innovation, lean, Operations, supply chain, Value chain
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Moore’s law and renewable energy.
Gordon Moore first promulgated his now well know law in an “Electronics” magazine in 1965, that the number of transistors that could be packed onto a standard chip would double every year for at least 10 years. Moore updated his … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Innovation
Tagged Change, climate change, Innovation, Leadership, Politics
3 Comments
9 reasons your advertising is irrelevant
The link here is to the Social Media Examiner site, probably the best commentator on things “social media” amongst the thousands out there, offering 9 reasons why content does not get shared, emerging from some useful research. Thing is, as … Continue reading
Posted in Branding, Communication, Marketing
Tagged Branding, communication, Marketing
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StrategyAudit 