Happy 4th of July and a globalized America

At a recent entrepreneurs meeting the speaker mentioned that if you can't succeed in America you can't really succeed anywhere else. The audience which was feeling somewhat down with earlier talk of the slow economy,  got galvanized and started making active plans for the next thing they were going to do for their businesses. On 4th of July CNN has it's 100 Great things about America and it was wonderful to see that "opportunity"topped the list. Just to add to this long list from this blog is the rapid globalization you see in American life in the last 10 years. 

Lots of evidence of globalization on main street America if you look. Ethnic food,music,culture and views are not only accepted but celebrated. Every newscast has some  global news content,not that evident just a couple of years ago. People are learning Chinese or at least enthusiastically eat Chinese food. They  have some familiarity with India's Bollywood music and baby boomers seem to know that the turmeric in Indian curry might help with keeping Alzheimer's disease at bay and yoga and meditation is a good way to reduce stress.

More recent and amazing is the shift in the US public opinion on Afghanistan. Within days of the killing of Osama Bin Laden there was virtually no further discussion on the topic and the focus shifted to the US economy and the need to do something more quickly about it. "Fix roads in the US first rather than fix roads  in  Afghanistan" was the message . So why is this a signal of globalization of the American spirit?

Probably because Americans have put  911 behind them, something most other cultures would find hard to do.

Americans  want to be able to both integrate and compete in a global world and good roads help in competing. They empathize with the Afghans but feel that folks everywhere need to put their own house in order. This ability to move on to the next challenge (incidentally the economy on this July 4th) makes America great according to this blog.

Wishing blog readers a Happy 4th of July!

Dealing with nuclear power risks

The Los Alamos wildfare is making headlines as concerns rise about damage to the nuclear lab. Wildfires are more predictable (brush,dry,summer) than earthquakes as in Fukushima,Japan.The question that the rest of the world is asking is if Americans and Japanese are scrambling to deal with natural disasters and nuclerar installations then what about us?

This is a legitimate concern and a critical "tipping" point for the nuclear power industry with the Germans having decided to shut down nuclear power plants by 2022 and not take any risks, seeing the Japanese was enough for the Germans.

However, nuclear energy is  currently at 14% of   the energy mix and given it's environmental advantages can do much better. That is, if the risks are managed and folks talk about their risk management plans frequently and  frankly. People don't understand nuclear power and the industry treating risks and contingency plans as taboo topics doesn't help. In new product parlance, this is a post-launch problem, and the nuclear power industry needs to take up the operating plant safety issues -upfront.Since Chernobyl the world has totally changed with the Internet and constant sharing of news and silence particularly when things are going well – is a lost opportunity to build support for the industry.

Entertainment: video game industry three times music and double movie industry

Here are the numbers of the three industries reported on CBS:

  • Music Industry   $6.9 Billion
  • Movie Industry  $ 10.6 Billion
  • Video Game Industry  $23 Billion

In fact it is one industry that has booming employment in Texas as people take to video games to escape from thoughts of the slow economy. But frankly, the numbers are staggering and both Hollywood and the music industry must take notice. The video game seems to combine the fantasy of film with music and the interactivity and a sense of "being in control" that the player probably feels while playing video games.

 

While the question of the Supreme Court ruling against the State of California will be viewed with concern by many parents and teachers, I guess the Court is moving with the times. For as Vivek Wadhwa recently wrote, this is the age of social media and interactivity . Wadhwa suggests  that our negative concerns about social media sort of mirror public concerns when books became available in the 1800's. In fact, reading too many novels by school kids  was hugely frowned upon , while  today  the summer has town libraries, teachers,parents frantically  pursuing kids to read – anything.

Clearly, video gaming  fits very well with the new world. When it comes to violent video games perhaps there will be some kind of age "proof" that is put in place as the industry becomes more responsible and society find a balance.

The stunning  video game numbers though point to huge opportunity including developing new games, distributing through the Internet and mobile apps. Standards of game quality are also set to  rise as Gen Y grows up and demands higher quality in this domain. More on why video gaming is booming.

Leadership is futile if you are not willing to manage for outcomes

This blog always had a combined section on Leadership and Management and I am glad that it did when I read True Leaders Are Also Managers by Robert Sutton. For some reason leadership is equated to a grand "vision" of "doing the right thing" and management is seen as the more mundane "trenches" where implementation happens and "doing things right" is seen as tasks that anyone can do. But guess what-  management is what puts leadership into action or when the rubber hits the road. As Robert Sutton mentions organizations are full of leaders who put out a vision without having a sense of either the rubber or the road.They expect their reports  to implement and when things don't work out the reports are considered incompetent and might actually be replaced. This goes on for a few cycles till the Board of Directors realize and replace the CEO/particular C-Officer and this time hopefully the new CEO gets a better sense of implementation issues before pushing a grand vision.

And hey, this blog truly supports 'grand visions'- just that the leader must always have  a better first-hand sense of the road-map and ensure  that the road-map does reflect the terrain. Here is how the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and the Chief Supply/Procurement Officer (CSO/CPO) can make sure that their leadership gets management  traction:

  • If you are a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of say a consumer product organization take the effort to visit your distributors and yes take the truck route with the salesperson to retailers. See for yourself how shelves are stocked and how the point of sale materials your ad agency dreamt up is actually displayed on the retail floor. Similarly, on the research and insights side tell your research manager or agency that you'd like to watch in on the next focus group or stand in with the mall intercept interviewers. Observe and "do" yourself where possible and you'll find yourself sharpening your leadership vision while earning the respect of both your reports and troops besides the folks at  the ad and research agency. 
  • If you are a Chief Supply/Procurement Officer (CSO/CPO) visit with users internally. When I say users I mean the machine operator who uses direct raw material or the secretary who changes the indirect toner cartridge on the printer. See the "product in use" that your people buy and ask these users for experiences and feedback. Do the same with suppliers when they come to meet your buyers. Take the time to visit a supplier's plant if you are in town for say a conference. You'll be amazed at the insights you gain and how you are able to re-frame your supply leadership vision with elements that can really happen on the ground. In addition, your users-buyers-suppliers will know that you are trying to understand and that alone will hugely improve things.

Are these obvious things to do? Not really as there are just too many examples where both Marketing and Supply Chain Leaders operate from high in the air, while the CEO and Board wonder  why initiatives don't materialize in outcomes.

US Jobs McKinsey : more management work from “soup to nuts” ?

More management work from soup to nuts even- if you know only soup making best- seems to be the signal from the US  job market. For example, companies are not willing to pay separately for project management when they outsource IT and similarly in-house the workfrorce from R&D to Marketing and Sales,Supply Chain and Engineering are supposed to self manage, what with the middle managers let go in the recession. Never mind that the work-force has been  restructered  in 65% of organizations to reduce headcount according to Exhibit 6 of the McKinsey Report.  Reducing headcount or employees in the US is simply to cut cost. What mechanisms did companies use  ? These measures were:

  1. More work to existing folks ( 54%)  ………#
  2. Automation of tasks (44%)…….#
  3. Increase in part-time/contractual for peak work (44%)….#
  4. Re-designed processes(43%)
  5. Off-Shore/Outsourcing (24%)………#
  6. Other (4%)
  7. Don't know (2%)

Just ask around and you'll know that the additional work (1 above) being put on existing folks is really more of the remaining ones in the list above. That is make sure that automation  works, manage the part-timers and the outsourced work (marked …..# above).

And the trouble is that these managerial tasks can be handled either by folks who have the skills or know the organization for years. The latter are the baby boomers who will retire large scale around 2020 by which time there will be a shortage of replacements and unemployment might actually come down to 5%.The big value the baby boomers bring today is the knowledge of the organization to try and integrate the part-time/contract workers and the outsourced work.

The good news for blog readers is that management skills will be in high demand – so if you  specialize in say social media marketing or on the  PLM or Supply Chain module in an ERP system but also are able to understand the connection between your speciality and production,supply chain,HR and finance – for your particular industry -you will do great. Much better than someone who knows social media marketing or is  good with particular modules of ERP systems but does'nt "get" the other connections.

Dealing with your internal organization takes too much time and energy for B2B marketers and Supply Chain Managers

  Marketing and Supply Chain at Organization Boundary-StratoServe062211 Just dealing with internal folks, including your boss, takes up a whole lot of time and energy for B2B marketers and Supply Chain managers. Being folks that are at the boundary of the organization and facing outside you should be spending between  70-80%  of your time with the customers or thinking about how to serve them better. OK if you are on the supply side you should be spending 70-80% time between suppliers,internal users and marketing to figure out where your organization is going and how you can bring your skills to bear.

To start with both sides should have deep knowledge about where the organization is going, what needs it is trying to serve and if things are changing at high speed as in on-line search, spend time on training as Google is doing with Product Spotlight.

But when you tally the time you spend in attending numerous barely relevant meetings, dealing with unrelated issues many of them just organizational politics, you find yourself exhausted. You find that on many  days you are able to devote only about 20 % of your time,energy and focus on the "real" core of your role and job description and 80% on "other stuff". But hey- the organizational distractions which seem unproductive are part of organizational life be it voluntary non-profit organizations, professional organizations, religious organizations for-profit firms and yes Governments and political parties worldwide. 

Staying focused on your role and dealing with within organizational distractions as a fact of life might be a way to be more productive.Also as one top leader of a food  company once mentioned at a seminar, it helps to be "nice" throughout the so called distractions because although they are not mentioned in the job description – distractions come with the territory. Complicating things is that you don't really take a class on this in college….

New ICANN rules might allow interesting distributor websites for major brands

Unless you have $185,000 to spend on a ".yourname" the news that ICANN will allow  any legitimate brand owner to get a ".yourname"  suffix will not help very much. Unless of course you are a dealer for a major brand like say Ford motors. Then if the brand owner and distributor can work out the responsibility issues perhaps the dealer can have a website that has the town's name and say ".ford" after that which would sound great.

Today however, most auto brand websites warn you that you are leaving their website when you go to the dealer's website. So there is a whole lot of work  on dealer relationship issues before such a neat on-line branding idea can be implemented by the big brands that in-turn help smaller businesses.

The ".yourname" will not help in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well unless big brands decide to do a permanent re-direct from their  ".com." As the video suggests the ".yourname" might really suit trade,industry and travel promotion arms of local government and the idea of having a ".lasvegas" is interesting. Perhaps businesses that are unique to the location might be able to buy domain names with that geographic suffix. I guess domain name registrars like GoDaddy will have a new line of business opening up- retailing domain names with suffixes like ".lasvegas," beyond the usual ".com" and somewhat uncommon ".tv" that already exist.

Congratulations to Big Blue IBM for 100 years of constantly reinventing itself

At a time when American businesses feel vulnerable its time to reflect on some  personal recollections about IBM over the years, some of which are being recounted fondly today, 100 years of IBM.

  • A culture that is shared and if you don't join in as an employee  you are ejected pretty early . Sounds tough but helps build a sense of common purpose. Remember stories I heard from IBMer's in India that in the 1960's  ( early mainframes, India no-where the hi-tech giant of today)  IBM-India  insisted that if employees arrived 30 minutes late on three days- they were out.
  • As students we had a huge IBM 1130 where we had to turn in our punch cards of Fortran programs overnight. The results would be waiting the next morning causing many a sleepless, anxious  wait. This was in a rural location and the computer had come in with rather poor roads, no direct rail. Getting the mainframes into Universities so early did contribute to the IT powerhouse status that India has today.
  • Global organization culture studies owes a great deal to IBM for engaging Geert Hofstede to figure out why multinational company branches understand the same message differently. Hofstede published his book "Culture's consequences" that continues to be the most major piece of research in the field. Geert Hoftede advised me to work from existing data on my PhD  based on how well  the IBM data had worked  for him.
  • One was rather disappointed when IBM sold it's  personal computer and laptop business but when you see laptops selling for $300-$400 today, you know why.
  • IBM retained its mainframe business in new forms,went on investing in research, got into software and services in a big way. Check out the IBM  essay on 100 years- a masterpiece on why businesses need to re-invent themselves for tomorrow while doing the business for today.

Above all , B2B marketers and Supply Chain folks need to appreciate how IBM has been able to keep the market mantra of "You can't get fired if you buy IBM"  alive in every business and country  they have been in over the last 100 years. Congratulations IBM !

New opportunity for roofers as Google invests $280 million in residential solar

The great thing about the weather folks is that they are able to predict sunshine better than oil folks can predict oil and gas. And Google's investment of $280 million in residential solar with Solar City seems to be a great move  and a new opportunity for those in the roofing related installation business who have been hard hit with the down-turn in US housing. Residential solar panels on lease (zero payment) makes sense for home owners beleaguered by high home energy costs. As a homeowner you own the sunshine that falls on your roof and- it's free !

Google expects to make about 8-9% from funding the capital cost, which does'nt seem like much but  once installed and working the revenue is pretty much  sure to come through. And, if  the home-owner gets some free power from her/his roof its a true winning situation, particularly when the housing market might decline by another 10-25% according to Robert Shiller and home owners find it difficult to  sell. Might as well try and save some energy cost  with solar panels  is the  sort of "coping with recession" logic here but at least you are thinking of something positive like sunshine. The Solar City equipment lease for a 3 bedroom home is estimated at $110 a month and I guess payback depends on how much sunshine you get on your roof throughout the year.

The Solar City business model is to do free installation and take a lease payment from the homeowner for the solar panel equipment . Now that sounds a bit like the satellite TV antennae industry where  the installer industry installs  the antennae on your roof for the different Satellite TV companies like Direct TV and Dish TV.

So probably there is opportunity for folks who do TV satellite dish installations as well. Yes there is a set of installation and maintenance  training that has to take place for the installation crews but if you have a roofing related business,this does seem like an opportunity to check out.

Privacy: from Pentagon Papers to Wikileaks and transparent Airbus in 2050

From yesterday the Pentagon Papers relating to the Vietnam war can be downloaded. At the time in 1971 the whole "leak"thing was an international scandal that lasted for years. Flash foward to Wikileaks 40 years later and the world media has lost interest and there is public protest in support of the alleged culprit Private Manning. Flash forward another 40 years to 2050, and Airbus have a transparent plane as a vision ! 

Today there are several air passengers on every flight who take the window seat and promptly draw the blinds and try to sleep and generally stay private and to themselves. But guess what – Airbus might be onto a huge social change illustrated between the difference at the  duration and intensity of public outrage in Pentagan Papers (1971) vs. Wikileaks (2010).

Technology,globalization and economic growth in the developing world might actually make a "fishbowl"  type transparent plane work as our notions of privacy and confidentiality change.