Effective Project management needs Information flows as well as work flows.
Standard project management tools are designed to manage a sequential series of activities typified by a building project. They do this very well, as the work flows are dependent on the completion of previous work that is done to well understood, almost generic...
Market share, another question of Quantity Vs Quality
Market share is probably the most commonly used non financial measure, almost everyone uses it who can access even basic market and competitive data. The rub comes when you consider who is in the share. A simple share number can disguise high customer churn, high...
Making money in the connected “post copyright” era.
The digital age has made the notion of copyright as an enforceable protection of an income stream outmoded. How then do you make money out of an idea? In the past, people created stuff to be heard (or read, or seen) and that meant you could make money, because people...
Charles Darwin’s birthday and innovation.
The 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, author of seminal publication, "The Origin of Species" is attracting a lot of attention. Management thinkers for some time have used many of Darwin's concepts as metaphors for management challenges, and as the "connected" world...
Working Capital Productivity
Operational management is becoming harder pressed to find reductions in the working capital required to keep the operations running, with the constant option of outsourcing, "off-shoring", consolidation, and so on as the price of not running hard enough. Working...
Working Capital Productivity, transaction costs and Demand chains
I recently wrote about the productivity of working capital, and my view that the productivity of the capital was a revised calculation that all businesses should consider. Clearly, the best way to increase the productivity of the capital required to run the business,...
The power of the individual.
The new conventional wisdom is to use the net as a marketing tool. I am certainly one who believes that the net is as influential as was the introduction of TV as a marketing medium, but the "rules" for brand building remain similar on the net as they have always...
How do you measure “customer focused”?
Customer focused has become a cliché, it appears in a wide range of material, usually it seems, written by people who have never interacted with a customer in their lives. So how do you measure customer focused? Here are some basic things you need to know before the...
Telstra takes the “Twit of the year” marketing award.
Yesterday Telstra, Australia's largest, formerly monopoly Telco announced that they would put a $2.20 administration fee on all payments made in person. Even for Telstra, who have over the years dug up creative ways to convince their customers to go elsewhere, this is...
Wake up Woolworths suppliers
How long will it take for the politicians in this country to forge an acceptable compromise amongst all the interests in the carbon debate, and take meaningful action.? Probably forever, and we will end up with the proverbial camel after all the compromise, and that...