Nov 17, 2010 | Change, Strategy
The reluctance of the Federal Government to be transparent about the assumptions underpinning the investment in the NBN would fail the tests of due diligence most boards undertake when making a major commercial allocation of resources.
As a cynical shareholder in “Australia Inc” my suspicion is that the hard work has not been done, and that the underpinning assumptions that have been made are emotionally driven, and short term in nature, rather than by a long term view of the best way to spend shareholders money for the long term competiveness of the enterprise, in this case, the country.
I would resign from any of the commercial boards I contribute to in the event that it determined to make a “bet the farm” investment in a manner that removed flexibility in manner in which the investment was made in the face of a highly ambiguous and rapidly evolving commercial, technical and competitive environment. The only thing we know for sure about investments made under these circumstances is that nothing ever goes completely according to plan, so flexibility and technical agility in the execution of the plan to achieve the desired outcome is essential.
The role of the opposition in this debate is crucial, an optimist would be hopeful that their motives and views are formed by the long term financial and social return that will come from being “competitively connected” in a global world. Malcolm Turnbull appears to be making a good start, hopefully the politics of the thing do not overcome the increasing opportunities to just kick the Government for the sake of the political equivalent of the rush a mugger must get when they stick the boot in.
Nov 16, 2010 | Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
Peter Drucker once said that innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage, and most who have thought about it would agree.
However, in most situations, this commitment to innovation tends to result in more and more potential products and technical solutions, adding complication and cost to every business process.
By contrast, Apple does the opposite, led by Steve Jobs, Apple ruthlessly eliminates all but a very few, and then ensures that the products left on the list are done remarkably well, and remarkably differently.
In 1998 Jobs reduced the products in Apples inventory from 350 to 10, tough love that has resulted in the resources to redevelop the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, rather than spreading themselves thinly across the many products that they already had, and that beckoned.
To be remarkable, (remarkable is Seth Godin’s term, it works!) Apple has removed features, no buttons on a phone, no dials on an iPod, taking seriously the designers mantra that perfection in design is achieved when there is nothing superfluous to the functionality left to remove, rather than all that can be added has been.
Nov 15, 2010 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
I am a member of three frequent flier programs, Qantas, Virgin and Singapore, and get frequent updates, offers, and spam from all three, all ignored.
I know where and why my business is split, but they do not, and none have ever asked me the question, although it would be very valuable information to have, not just for me, as my expenditure would hardly rate as significant, but at a macro level. If they had the information, and could mine it, and develop programs that may make them more relevant to me, and presumably many other consumers.
Well, that is coming.
The emerging location tools of the mobile world are going to offer the possibility that Qantas will be able to track my presence in an airport and know when I am not booked to travel with them.
Intrusive perhaps, but valuable consumer share of wallet information if they cared to ask why I travelled with one and not another in any given circumstance.
Nov 14, 2010 | Innovation, Strategy
Innovation breakthroughs are rare, but the innovation that rewrites the rules of an industry is the focus of most management attention.
Most innovation activity, and the source of most value from innovation, comes in small steps, one day at a time, along a path whose outcome is improvement.
Toytota’s continuous improvement DNA is an enterprise wide innovation effort, now partially understood and codified as the TPS is the best known example, and concentrates on taking small steps, every day, that add up to a huge change over a period of time.
And as we can now see from the quality stumbles of Toyota over the last couple of years, if you take your eye off the long term, and take the short term prize, it can ruin the hard-won momentum.
Look for the trends in your industry, make them visible to the entire enterprise, and tie every activity (not just of employees, but importantly suppliers as well) to the target of achieving an improvement
Nov 11, 2010 | Collaboration, Innovation, Strategy
When all the verbiage is removed, there seems to be four great challenges to effective collaboration, irrespective in my experience of the specific environment in which the collaboration takes place.
- The need to be cross functional, which cuts across all the traditional management and control structures, and can be a threatening prospect to many individuals and existing structures, i.e., the status quo is under threat, and reacts predictably.
- The openness and transparency required for collaboration to contribute demands a culture of personal and group responsibility directed by data, not by personality.
- A recognition that Intellectual Property is leveraged by spreading and usage, anathema to the old model of filing a patent, and defending it in the courts. IP has been replaced in collaborative systems by the Intellectual Capital of the group, which is not static, but evolves with use.
- Any individual involved in a collaborative system needs to engage with, and be committed to the above three factors, failure to do so by any individual can wreck havoc on the effectiveness of the collaboration.
Get the above right, and your enterprise will flourish, but whilst it may sound easy, in reality figuring out how to make collaborative initiatives work in this increasingly connected world is the challenge of the 21st century.
