Nov 22, 2009 | Demand chains, Management, Operations, Sales
If you want a prediction, go to the lady in the tent at the local fair.
If you want a forecast, talk to those who have an intimate knowledge of the drivers of the outcomes you are seeking to forecast.
Good forecasting is an iterative process, the more you do, the better you get, so long as you understand why the forecast is (almost) never right on each occasion it is done. Continuous improvement techniques are the core functions of good forecasting.
Forecasts are also improved when you leave aside some of the algorithms that manipulate the past into a forecast, and look instead at the drivers of demand, sometimes a qualitative input, to get a better picture of the sales that may come along. If you are selling ice-blocks, it is useful to look out the window to see how hot it may be, and factor that into forecasts, not just rely on sales over the last few weeks.
Nov 12, 2009 | Branding, Management, Marketing
It is easy to create something, post it on u-tube and sit back and hope it goes “viral” giving you a turbo charged marketing program for not much money.
This rarely happens, as the punters know an ad when they see one.
The real challenge is to first identify those who love your product, and have the propensity to shout about your services, and set about delighting them, then they may send your message viral, but even if they just talk about it over the back fence to their neighbor, they will be your marketing department. Word of mouth, around forever, is really just person to person viral marketing, and we always knew it worked, it is just that now we have person to potentially millions, and we think it should scale up arithmetically, but it doesn’t.
There is not much use telling those who do not care, or who do not care enough to do anything positive, or are satisfied where they are, so focus your attention and passion on the few who will make the difference.
Nov 8, 2009 | Leadership, Management, Strategy
Various expressions of the basis for an organsations existence, Vision, Mission, Purpose, and others, all have different meanings, and certainly different meanings to different people, and have all been misused for years.
Some time ago running an agricultural industry workshop, very early in the proceedings, a bloke down the back piped up & said ” If I have to hear another vision, or mission, I will puke”(or words to that effect). Stopped the conversation cold for a bit, but the comment reflected the simple fact that these expressions have become clichés.
Having an unambiguous expression of why you are here, and the purpose of the business, gives a context to decisions all stake holders make about what they can expect, what is important and why, and what they have to learn, and do better, or more of. It provides a connection between all of the competing agendas and priorities with the simple question: “how will this assist to achieve the purpose of the business?”
Answering that apparently simple question ” why are we here” can be very difficult, but it is worth the effort.
Nov 4, 2009 | Management, OE, Operations
It is a truism that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Largely those who have practiced measuring and then managing for improvement have done well, Toyota with their TPS have taken over the world auto industry, and 6 Sigma, first embraced by GE has driven huge benefits to many.
However, it can be taken too far, the measurement mania that I have seen taking hold can be counter productive.
Two rules:
Measure only what ,matters
Use the measurement to improve .
Too many measure everything as a routine, but with no improvement strategy, nothing really matters as no improvement takes place, others measure stuff that is irrelevant in the scheme of things because it is easy, leaving unmeasured and unimproved the drivers of value.
Nov 3, 2009 | Management, Marketing
New communication mediums have allowed small groups, and individuals to make a lot of noise, but the volume of noise does not necessarily relate to the logic or accuracy of their position, just to their ability to make noise.
Listen for the validity of a point of view, not the volume with which it is promulgated.
Oct 28, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Management
In a world of disruptive change, the perhaps usual path to the CEO’s office needs to be rethought.
Over the last 50 years, CEO’s have largely come from accounting and business management backgrounds, more latterly, marketing & strategy have had their shot, but in a world changing at such a huge rate, it makes sense to source the CEO from the ranks of the product and design people.
Would the US car industry be in such a mess if the top blokes came from the engineering and innovation streams, instead of from the financial side that crushed innovation under the cruel hand of spreadsheets that assumed more of the same, only better?
Elon Musk, creator of Paypal, where he took on the banks, and Tesla, the first fully electric car, is an entrepreneur with an engineering background and a profoundly restless mind, who just believes, and who has created 3 hugely innovative businesses that destroyed the status quo. What could such a person have done at General Motors with the resources of that former giant at his disposal.
