Jul 7, 2010 | Innovation, OE, Strategy
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 costs are huge currently, and rising at a far greater rate than the economy expanding, creating a substantial emerging “hole”. Digitising this data, and making it available for improvement initiatives across our health services is imperative.
It is accepted that data is the first step on the road to improvement, without data, everything is speculation. Here is one of the greatest tests of public policy for the future, and we hide away from the blindingly obvious benefits that can flow from process improvement and innovation to protect existing vested interests, and unrealistic, unsustainable concerns about increasing the degree of transparency.
If the public sector was a business with a bottom line, and there was a competitive need to improve and change in order to survive, instead of a monolithic testament to the past, the efficiency of our current expenditure would be increased by probably 50%. Sounds unrealistic, but businesses that have effectively implemented real Lean principals into their operations and demand chains have found 50% is readily achievable.
Note that I have specifically indicated that the efficiency would increase 50%, and not that costs would be reduced 50%, although cost reduction is the corollory. There is a real difference, and the difference is the one that appears to separate the successful Lean implementations from the unsuccessful, because success in Lean is about behaviour change and productivity improvement, not slash and burn cost reduction. Reduction in unit cost comes about only when extra capacity, freed up by the elimination of waste, is used, and is effectively for free, as the piper had already been paid.
Jul 6, 2010 | Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
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, until you consider the value created by subtle differences, particularly in consumer products, and original creations, a painting, poem, piece of music , new gadget, a new expression, or a new use for a staple product
An original Van Gough is worth tens of millions, but a copy it would take an expert to pick, done by very capable technicians in China, can be had for a modest amount. It is not that the copy is a lesser painting technically, it is just not the original.
Seeking the original is the core of innovation and commercial sustainability, as the alternative is to chase the cost curve to the bottom, where in the long run, the best return possible for the lowest cost producer is around the cost of capital.
Jul 5, 2010 | Change, Personal Rant
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 is it such a new idea??
William Jevsons an English economist published a book in 1865 called “The coal Question” in which he speculated that the machines (steam engines) developed to utilise the coal deposits in England, and to which England had easy access, had become so efficient that the at rate at which the resource was being depleted, England would soon run out.
It would be dumb to assume that the search for new oil reserves would repeat the experience with coal, where huge new resources were discovered in many places, but it makes sense to consider commercial and technical responses to the increasing cost of oil that will be a natural outcome of the increasing difficulty, cost, and environmental impact of extraction.
The awareness of the costs of oil across our society is mobilising great intellect to address then problem. As you read around this topic, fascinating stuff comes to light. One is the e-book, Winning the Oil Endgame written by Amory Lovins and colleagues.
Whilst this relates ways in which technology can reduce, and perhaps virtually eliminate oil use, none of the technology is science fiction, just applications of existing, well understood science.
I can only wish that 10% as much effort that Canberra invests in spinning their green credentials could be devoted to doing something useful.
Jul 4, 2010 | Branding, 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 being found out.
BP has spent millions on PR, advertising, logo changes, and acquisitions aimed at positioning themselves as clean and green nurturers of the environment, all of which is now just fuel for the fire of hypocrisy flaming alongside their spill in the Gulf.
The question is not of survival, as BP has assets the world needs, at least for the easily foreseeable future, but their cost of doing business will increase, as no-one will ever trust them again, no matter how much they spend.
BP is now an “ex-brand” as dead as the ubiquitous parrot due to BP being unable to walk and talk to the same tune, how is yours going?
Jul 1, 2010 | Customers, Marketing, Social Media
As a group, you may not like something. A style of music, a literary style, a type of product, a group of people, but when you see one of the group individually, and find you like it, or them, the rest of the genre becomes less confronting.
It is the same with brands, the closer you get to a part of the brand, the easier it is to find things about the whole that you like, and you can more easily justify involvement, and scoff at your previous dislike. Cognitive dissonance at work.
By definition you only get closer to a brand if it is delivering something to you, so it is a bit of a circular process, but the lesson for markets is that to build a brand, you need to get close.
The tools of “getting close” have changed, they used to be largely one way communication mechanisms, but now we have the power and tools of the web, so get close, engage, embrace, and succeed.
