Jan 3, 2014 | Change, Management, Strategy
In a post in January last year, I made 10 predictions for 2013. In the interests of accountability, it is reasonable to see how I went.
So, here goes:
- Marketing is digital and personal, mass marketing is dead! As with Mark Twain’s quip that reports of his death appear to be premature, so to are the reports of the death of mass marketing. However, the trend is clear, and the grim reaper is ‘a comin’. 3/5.
- Social media will overtake traditional news dissemination channels. Few of us wait these days for the evening news to hear about the events of the day. Even if we have not seen it in out twitter feeds, somebody we know has, and has told us. The role of traditional media as a disseminator of news, rather than a source of analysis of the, is clearly over. Arguably the analysis role is also kaput, as traditional media appears to have been highly politicised to reflect the views of the owners, that real analysis hardly occurs. Anyway, who goes to the 7.30 “analysis” shows on TV for anything beyond the foot in the door, inane, and emotive “journalism”. 4/5.
- A few smart SME’s will do very well, but the rest will at best struggle, and many will fail. Still true. 5/5.
- The new “cool” for our kids is to train as a “tradie” as there are insufficient fulfilling jobs left for those with modest, non vocational degrees, to fill demand from the aforementioned graduates. Still true, and getting truer. 4/5
- The shortage of willing and able workers will continue, as we no longer train people to work, we train them to “expect”. As above. A client of mine has a number of farm worker under 457 visas, several of them very qualified (pharmacy, teacher) working happily for wages unemployed Australians turn their noses up at. 5/5
- The 40% of SME’s who do not have web sites, or have sites that act only as an electronic brochure rather than as a magnet to their target customers need to realise they are missing the opportunity to grab the lifeline. Still true. Several services have evolved in the last 12 months that make it even easier. WordPress still rules the roost, but services like Weebly make it even easier again, there is no longer any excuse. This site, Yarralong.com run by a friend of my sisters was done in a few hours on Weebly by someone with few computer skills at all, just a bit of common sense and patience. 3/5
- “Big Data” the combination of traditional data bases and the behavioural and attitudinal data scavenged from social media will become the next big thing during 2013. I still believe this, but the change is slower than I expected. 2/5
- Mobile will take over from fixed line, comprehensively, and across all communication channels. Almost done. 4/5
- The economy will continue to slow, consumers are cautious and risk averse. No change there, the economy is slowing rapidly, in my anecdotal view, slower than the public figures would lead commentators relying on the numbers to see. 2014 will be a crappy year, notwithstanding the drop in the $A. Manufacturing is down the toilet, investment is slowing rapidly, retailers are struggling, large areas of rural Australia are again in the grip of drought, and more will tip into drought as winter approaches. The long paddock will be well used. 4/5
- Around July/August, the economy will stumble into a really nasty hole as we approach a Federal election. The hole was not as deep as I anticipated, but the numbers emerging in the post election period are pretty grim, and we wait to see if the new government has any real strategy, or if they will continue just to dump on the previous government, and focus on getting elected again by spending our children’s legacy. 4/5
Marking yourself can be self serving, so let me know what you think.
Dec 23, 2013 | Change, Management, Operations, Strategy
Amongst all the emotional rhetoric and dubious numbers being visited upon us by various interest groups and pollies after the announcement by GM that they will be folding their tents, there seems to be very little sensible analysis of the whole picture. Comment has all been focussed on the current supply chain, the economic and social impact of its crumbling, and what others should have done in the past to prevent it, and now clammering for compensation.
Compensation for what?
Lets have a look at some of the more common blathering.
- Holden is a national icon. GM is a huge multinational company, with problems facing it appropriate to its scale. Australia is a pimple on its arse, no matter how much we blather about “Holden, the national icon”. Why should we continue to support its operations here? If they are not commercially sustainable on their own merits, experience suggests, it is just a matter of time, and the longer we administer the medicine, the more painful the withdrawal.
- The workers need compensation. Fair enough, there will be pain in many households supported by Holden, and Ford over Christmas. However, compensation for what, where are the lines drawn? These workers have had many years of news that their employers are in the edge, so the announcements should not be a surprise, and now they have 4 years notice, and generous redundancy. There are many thousands of worker that have been displaced over the past 20 years who would have killed for just a month of notice and modest redundancy, let alone the largess heading the way of displaced auto industry workers.
- The supplier businesses need compensation. Similarly, the manufacturers in the supply chain, now to be supplying only Toyota whilst they remain manufacturing here, are facing tough times. Should be no news in any of this for them, so failure to adapt over several strategic horizons should not be an excuse for handouts.
- Employees pay taxes. So, the argument goes, being employed, even by a subsidised industry, owned overseas, is better than having them unemployed and the industry closed. This is the sort of economic and social poop, ignoring the lessons of many past disruptions that even the far left should be embarrassed about.
- The industry is the engineering University of Australia. There is some real truth in this, the capabilities nurtured by the car industry have benefited many other industries. However, as the decline in manufacturing in this country is across the board, not just in the car industries, perhaps we should be considering engineering capabilities in the wider context than just one industry that is clearly at the end of its life as it has been run to date. Australia has several sources of potential international competitiveness, mining engineering and technical mining services, solar engineering are just two. The fist of these we squeezed mercilessly for current income, disregarding the long term opportunities to build sustainable engineering capabilities, the second of which we actively encouraged to go overseas to find financial and technical support. How stupid are we?
- Loss of sovereignty. Perhaps the most spurious of the lot. As it goes, without the car industry we have no ability to defend ourselves, no national pride, no capacity to be Australian. Given that only 20% of the cars sold over the last couple of years have been manufactured here, this argument holds little water.
The solutions for the car industry have been obvious for a while, and although not easy, or without risk are not inconsistent with the commercial choices faced by any firm in an industry facing disruption. A few companies have embraced them. Futuris, a former subsidiary of Elders, and a major suppliers of car seats went offshore several years ago, and are reaping the rewards, and there are others, although way too few, who have moved to accommodate the long term trends in the industry, and have prospered.
Here is where I have problems. We are focussed on the political cycle, short term returns, ideology lacking foundation in the real behaviour of real people, and an expectation that it will be all done for us, by the “government”, forgetting that the government is us, spending our money in ways that suit them, and their political priorities, that have little to do with the long term development of engineering capabilities in the country.
Bit like Canute up to his arse in waves bitching about the tide.
Dec 16, 2013 | Branding, Governance, Management, Strategy
For perhaps the 1,000th time last week I heard the “strategy” question asked. It comes in many forms:
What is your customer strategy?
What is your google strategy?
What is your social media strategy? and so on.
All are valid questions, but the implication is that there is a different strategy for every bloody thing that is faced by a business, which to my mind is a degradation, perhaps commoditisation of the meaning of the word as it should (in my view) be practised. This type of usage is about the implementation of strategy, the manner in which you go about achieving the strategic outcomes desired, not about the formulation of the drivers of performance over the long term.
Equally, having an annual “strategic workshop” that sets strategy for the year is a nonsense, well, at best a budgeting session by another name.
“Strategy” is at once simpler, and more complicated than that, and comes down to five really challenging questions that must be lived, every day, by all in the enterprise. They are not the subject of some crappy off-site gab-fest in the slow sales period of the year if you are serious.
- What is the business we are in? (the old are we selling drills, or 20mm holes question, probably the most undervalued, and original marketing question)
- What does the enterprise do to add value?
- What are the behavioural drivers of the primary customers we are seeking to service
- What is our value proposition to these customers and potential customers?
- What capabilities are crucial, now and into the future, and how do we develop them to be differentiated?
When was the last time you seriously asked yourself any of these?
Nov 26, 2013 | Change, Governance, Management
There are now so many one person businesses emerging, SME’s that employ no-one on a full time basis, but call on contractors and specialists when necessary, that I think we need a new term:
“Solepreneurs”.
They are often entrepreneurs, but not in the generally accepted sense of someone doing something radically new.
Rather, they are seeking to innovate, fill a niche, provide a service, or just do a better job on a local level, or in a marginally different way, often personalised in a way corporations, loaded down with overheads, processes, and corporate egos cannot. The digitisation of the way we work has removed the transaction costs in so many ways that these solepreneurs now have marketing and administrative clout unimaginable just 20 years ago, sufficient for them to often be potent competitors to established businesses that perpetuate the myth of the corporation.
The local chambers of commerce and networking groups are filled with them, and whilst individually they are insignificant, except perhaps to their customers, together they are a potent force emerging in the economy.
I wonder when politicians and rule makers will wake up?
Better be soon, as the face of the workforce is changing rapidly, and the old ways of public administration simply do not work well enough.
Nov 21, 2013 | Governance, Management, Marketing, Strategy
The metaphor for business as war is widely used, and it does have considerable value when considering strategy, tactics, capability development and resource deployment.
Marketing is a base component of this mix. It requires you to see the world, product offer, through the eyes and behavior of others, your customers, and potential customers, and in so doing, observe and understand the value proposition of alternative offerings.
So, if there is a metaphor for the competitive aspects of marketing, it is act like your enemy, do to yourself what your enemy would if they had the information, resources and capabilities you have, with the intent of defeating you.
With apologies to the original, “do unto others before they do unto you.”
Nov 18, 2013 | Change, Governance, Leadership, Management, Operations
Perhaps unfortunately I was on the receiving end of a rant about design thinking last week. It was a passionate, articulate, and informed rant, but a rant nevertheless.
There is no doubt in my mind that design thinking is a competitively crucial capability. In this homogeneous and connected world, recognising the value that design can deliver, that it is an integral part of not just the physical products, but of enterprise culture and processes, is essential to commercial longevity.
However, design thinking has a fundamental flaw, a flaw clearly demonstrated by the “rantor” last week. As my old Dad used to say, “Son, you get 1/10 for thinking about it, the other 9 are for doing it”
My rantor was a thinker, but do not ask him to do anything creative. It is hard, dangerous (to a career) work to be contentious, advocate stuff outside the status quo, to be the questioner who backs up the questions with action, and most shy away.
We do need more design thinking, but we also need way, way more design doing, so stop hyping, and start doing.
