Posts Tagged ‘Business’

I’ve been interviewing business leaders in preparation for my presentation at next month’s It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival.  I won’t give away too much before the March 17th event, but there are a few common topics that have come up.

One topic, Flexibility, was mentioned, unsolicited, in each interview. Their respective domains included Manufacturing, Finance, and Human Resources.  As you may expect each brought the topic up in a different context.

From a manufacturing perspective, there is a need to be flexible in how companies are organized.  Many manufacturing concerns use organizational models first developed in the post-World War II era.  Companies like IBM, United Technology, Ford, GM, and the like, developed rigid, deep, hierarchical organizations.  As a result, their ability to change to meet current needs was all-but beyond their grasp.  Not until experiencing near-death experiences, such as with the Domestic 3, were they finally desperate enough to change.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series, Starting Your Own New Business. The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business. Below, is the high-level presentation delivered Friday, February 19, 2010.

This high-level presentation discusses what are perhaps the most key topics important for successfully moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.  The target audience is new entrepreneurs considering business for themselves.

I’m pleased to let everyone know, March 17, I will be speaking at the It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival Conference.  You’re encouraged to come.

Dennis Jeffrey of Tekni Consulting is the event’s organizer.  Heading into 2010, we begin to catch our breaths, having simply survived 2009.

Now, is the time for revival!  But, not revival just as a dictionary would describe it.  One definition is, ‘…restoration to use…’  We need not to simply revive, restore, or return to pre-‘09 conditions, we need to find ways to thrive, to strengthen ourselves and move forward positively.  With this in mind, I was happy to accept Dennis’ invitation to speak.

My discussion is part of the event’s Management track, focusing on Change.

The world around us continues to evolve; nothing new there.  But many organizations, even as they change what they look like, have largely stayed the same inside.  Social, technical, global evolution has now come so far organizations simply have no choice but to finally begin changing who they are inside.

Register Now! Early Bird Pricing until February 15th! Price is only $89/ person, group rates available.

For those of you who have followed my blog, you understand that my focus is on providing thoughtful business leadership.  Come listen as I discuss areas often neglected by leaders, allowed to fall by the wayside, which are increasingly important in today’s world—areas that need to change.

In preparation for this event, I am actively interviewing business leaders and soliciting input—including yours, dear reader.  I encourage you to provide your input regarding how businesses need to change in order to thrive, moving forward.  Feel free to Comment, or send me an email (results@jtpedersen.net).

This paraphrases the situation a friend of mine, selling a sophisticated yet simple product, frequently encounters.  The fact the company he’s selling for can’t get past the objection reflects an indifference to customer sensitivity.  A lack of customer-centricity.

The question today is how to compete moving forward.  If you’re in a market like the U.S., Western Europe, or Japan, you face a mature slower-growing economic environment—current economic challenges notwithstanding.  Using the automotive industry as an example, growth of 20, 30% annually is considered good.  In North America, 2-3% is considered good.

So if your market is mature and you can’t count on a rising tide to float all boats, how do you prosper?

The days of competing primarily on product and price, particularly for commodity-oriented offerings, are dwindling.  If you’re selling a car, there are numerous ‘family sedans’ with almost identical feature sets, for nearly identical prices.

This suggests a new way of competing must become prevalent.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series,  Starting Your Own New Business.  The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business.

Below, is the high-level presentation I’m giving today.  The focus is on moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.

Had a good conversation with a friend today.  As we talked, we seemed to circle around a common thought that has been all too apparent to many of us these days.  We have increasingly become a nation of specialists.  The foremen (and women) have largely been sent packing.

Sometimes the essence of this thought comes to mind, even though you might not do so tangibly.  For instance, my family has had a spat of medical ‘things’ going on.  10 years ago, most of our time was spent with our general practitioner.  You know…the one doctor you went to for just about ‘everything.’  Now, the GP seems to simply be a glorified gatekeeper.  Skin your knee, see the GP.  If you need a band-aid they’ll set you right up.  Otherwise, you’re off to for visits to any number of point-practitioners.  Ok, I exaggerate a bit…‘just’ a bit.

This problem is also very evident in our professional lives as well.  Today I met with a number of folks in a regional networking group.  The group reflects what is already known about this recession…most of those effected are mid/senior careerists.  What seems unspoken though, is these are also the folks known to a different generation as foremen.

Read the rest of this entry »

As someone consistently striving to be a top performer, my performance review experiences have generally been good.  They’re normally delivered well-past a HR-dictated deadline and contain few surprises.  And, unfortunately, they’re also often not worth the effort required.

This is probably part of why the review process is so dreaded.  Fundamentally it comes down to a manager being engaged and setting aside adequate time.  Time, unfortunately, is a major issue.  The larger your staff, the larger a block of time that’s required, bolted onto days, weeks already jammed full.  Reviews are often like the English lit papers you wrote in college or high school—the less time you put into them, the shallower they were, and it was apparent to whomever read it.

If I have only one piece of advice for managers, be engaged and set aside plenty of time to do it right.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I came across a discussion where the author stated, “something You Should Know: Job losses are probably permanent” Building on this, the M&A consultant stated there will be an, ‘…increase the number of people trying to buy businesses and drive bids up.” Certainly his claims were provocative and the resulting premise a little bit challenging for me to accept.

Here are the two sources cited in support of the ‘buy businesses’ claim:

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33384835/ns/business-stocks_and_economy
• http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/robert-reich-confirms-permanent.html

These largely struck me as stereotypical media talking heads mush. For instance:

“…I think the unemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi…” Self contradicting, in the same sentence, doesn’t know. Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent presentation I felt it important to emphasize that market = customers. Sophisticated analysis firms (e.g. Daratech, Gartner, Forester, etc.) like to release studies in which ‘markets’ are described as under-served in certain areas; where a market is going;, or, how a market is segmented. The firms might have spoken to a thousand individuals (company or person) in order to produce statistically valid aggregated results. In the end, people become abstracted, reduced to something a smidgeon less generic than ‘they.’

In contrast, I have seen very smart business people read a market study and then meet with a number of customers. Later, back at the office, they debate, ‘…the ‘market’ is doing X. But I met with three customers this week that are doing Y. It’s as though market does not equal customer. The Market and Customer are one in the same. However the customers you may have just met with (you know, the ones that just spent time with you) are the ones that might write a check someday.

It is important as you nurture an idea into a viable product that you assign a proper perspective your input sources. Neither should necessarily trump one or the other though how you weight them may vary occasionally.

Ok, so you have just read the title. You know what the article is about. Your expectations have been set. And, it has been pretty straight-forward thus far hasn’t it?

Over the past few months there have been a number of different articles debating whether we (in the US) are getting better or worse in our writing. The debate is often pretty black and white. One side cites examples of how Twittering (with its 140 character limits), SMS (phone texting with its 160 character limits), Instant Messaging, and the like are all promoting poor writing. The other side cites examples where people (particularly our younger generations) are incredibly effective at adjusting their messaging to suit the medium, and, how with all these new mediums—we are writing more than we ever have.

Regardless of Read the rest of this entry »