Jun 9, 2009 | Management, Operations
Further to the earlier post, “An agile demand chain” that drew the distinction between agility and flexibility, consider the differences between efficiency and agility.
In many plants, efficiency has been built at the expense of agility, as long runs of product dominate the thinking of many operational managements.
Agility without efficiency is a way to a quick commercial death, as competitors will be aggressive with prices once they realise their costs are lower than yours. The leading symptom is high unit costs driven by low machine availability.
Efficiency without agility will take far longer to impact, but ultimately is no less commercially lethal, as consumers will abandon an offering that becomes “stale” in a competitive environment. The symptom is high finished goods inventory to accommodate infrequent but long production runs .
Jun 8, 2009 | Marketing, Sales, Strategy
Yesterday I went to a free concert in Darling Harbour in Sydney, and saw Jeff Lang who plays “my music” the blues, and must be one of the best lap slide players in the world.
Point is, it was free, and he rocked the place, and judging by the reaction, he engaged with a lot of people who had never heard of him, and certainly had never seen him, and under normal circumstances, would never buy a CD of his, but they did yesterday, in truck-loads, and he hung around and signed stuff, smiled, laughed, and generally was nice to people.
Here was a world class player, engaging with people who were now avid fans of his, and who would remember the day, and continue to buy his albums long after the free sample. They may not have paid to be there, but will pay for a long time to come.
Free stuff sells, when it is good enough, different enough, and has a character and integrity people can relate to.
Jun 7, 2009 | Marketing
Today is the Queens birthday long weekend holiday (it always falls on a Monday, strange that) in a couple of Australia’s states, not all, and it is not even her real birthday. Obviously, someone failed to get the message about when the Queen was actually born, but then, there has been plenty of time to correct the inaccuracy if we chose to do so.
What the Queen does, or does not do has little to do with most Australians, so why do we celebrate her birthday, why is it that her photo, or that of one of her dysfunctional family on the cover of a magazine can give a huge boost to circulation, why do almost all young Australian travelers at some point wander down the Mall in London, watching the balcony window over the main entrance of the house at the end hoping for a glimpse?
Marketing.
Consistent, long term brand building, creating something that in a subliminal way we relate to, with all their foibles and eccentricities.
Brands are like friends, we give them personal characteristics when we think about and describe them, if we have a bad experience with a favorite brand, it is like being hit by a friend, but their contrition brings greater loyalty, because no-one is perfect.
The Queen and her brood, are the recipients of extended, long term brand building, probably without them even being aware of it, the changing of the guard, the pomp around the opening of Parliament, the references to the Queens parents role during the Blitz, all add to it.
The loyalty may be eroding, as newer, more trendy offerings turn up, the demography of Australia changes influenced by immigrants with no brand awareness, and they continue to demonstrate they are irrelevant to modern Australia, but it still works a treat, after all, we have a day off to celebrate don’t we.
Jun 4, 2009 | Management, Sales, Strategy
Great, the big presentation nailed it, the sale is made, the goal achieved.
When the cheering is over, and the empties from the celebration cleared away, perhaps a reflection on what really made the sale would be useful.
The presentation did not make the sale, it was just the last piece in the jigsaw.
The lead-up work that made the sale possible was made by the researcher who realised that the potential customer had a challenge your product could solve, or the truck driver who told you the competitive lead times were 6 weeks, and you can deliver in 3 days, or the operations guy who suggested that by adding an ingredient in your factory, you could eliminate a whole process in theirs, the sales people who nutted out the strategies in a Key Account Plan, and so on, you get the picture.
Industrial sales are usually made by a myriad of small things that together add up to something you can leverage, the presentation is only the end game, and is useless without the graft at the front end.
The graft is an organised process of gathering collating and prioritising market and customer intelligence, and matching that to the competitive advantages you can deliver, so the presentation can be produced, and sales gathered.
The font end is the hard bit, the presentation is the glory bit.
Jun 3, 2009 | Management, Strategy
The current debate in Australia about executive remuneration, kept alive recently by the departure of Sol Trujillo from Telstra, about who gets what, and how much is enough, is essentially a spurious debate about supply and demand for executive “talent” colored by individuals successfully marketing themselves as the new messiah.
However, it forgets that human beings are essentially herd animals, generally we want to belong to something that reflects our own values and views much more than we want another luxury car or boat, after the initial “need” is satisfied.
Belonging is a basic motivation that has largely been forgotten, and legislation will only serve to push it further into the background of peoples thinking, but it will not reduce the impact on peoples psychology.
Boards that set out to build an organisation to which people want to belong, will attract better talent at a much cheaper price than one that relies on just money.
Telstra paid Sol a pile, and got little back of the effort beyond a demoralized and “values free” enterprise.
Adios Sol, you took the dough, and added little, but whose fault is that?
