Leading the revolution

One week before the stuff hits the fan so to speak. Classes start next wednesday and I am excited. Class lunch, BBQ aside, I got to finish this book before then or it will continue to be hold until the end of the quarter. I started it yesterday and almost a quarter through. SO why did i not mention it earlier? Too busy reading to take notes :-)

Gary hamel is good at motivating, cynical but motivating. i felt breathless goign over the earlier introductions and his case on the importance of business strategy. Then came to the meat of the book so to speak.
"Innovation risk is determined by four things

1. The size of the irreversable and non recoverable financial commitment that must be made to get the project off the ground.
2. The degree to which new opportunity departs from the companys existing base of technical and market understanding
3. The ammount of irreducible uncertainity surrounding critical project assumptions
4. The timeframe required for rampup.

"

Gary develops a framework to unpack th ebusiness model comprising of four major components

• Core strategy: Business mission,Product/market scope,basis for differentiation.
• Strategic resources: Core competencies,strategic assets,core processes.
• Customer interface:Fulfillment and support,information and insight,relationship dynamic&pricing structure
• Value network:Suppliers, partners and coalitions.

The details to follow in subsequent comments. I didnt want to lose my train of thought and had to get it down appropriately.

:-)

Theory of constraints

Eli Goldratt in his novel " The Goal " Practically turned me into a bookworm. Chomping away merrily ignoring my wife and son for 2 days until it was over. Now the lovestory did not bother me much, a manager that cannot sort out his life will end up to be a very frustrated man indeed. I would really feel sorry for someone like that. Yet most of the Novels challenge me to predict the end and that controls the anxiety and adrenalin for me.

Anyway, As a lesson in best practices, i expected the Character to get things right and be rewarded for it. He lived up to that promise.

To summarize the lesson.

1. Clearly define the goal and purpose of the organization. Then establish a cause and effect relationship between policies and measurements with respect to the goal.
2. Try to understand and document as many assumptions as you possibly can. This serves as the data to build on further
3. Simplify the model to clearly establish causality.
4. Examine model and assumptions for inconsistencies. This will give you the starting point for problem solving.

Now that i have the framework, Here is how the book documents the lessons learnt

1. Identify the systems constraints
2. Decide how to exploit the systems constraints
3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision ( #2)
4. Elevate the systems constrainits
5. WARNING!! If in a previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not allow inertia to cause a systems constraint.

I guess, i will be posting more insights as we go along the class.

:-)

Review of " The customer differential" Melinda Nykamp

ok! this a CRM textbook required reading for my class this fall starts end of november or so. Just getting a headstart on it. Halfway through the book, I believe the essence is neatly captured in chapter 4. The rest of the book essentially hashes out the details. Here is a quick synopsis

The 5 organizational aspects that need to be considered for a customer focussed organization, the essence of an organization thar requires CRM are.

1. Business focus
2. Organizational Measures
3. Business Metrics
4. Customer interaction
5. Technology

Customer centric organizations either have it or dont, there probably is no middle ground( i question this). The book details in a step by step approach the roadmap to transforma non customer centric organization( be it product, place, market or service centric) to a customer centric one.

Business focus transformation needs to center around the question" What do our customers need, and how can we meet those needs?"

The Organizational structures needs to align according to the customers. Basically, teams and processes around customers or customer segments.

The Business metrics is a yproduct of business focus and organizational structure. Essentially rewarding behaviors that positively impact the long term desired from the customer that enhances the bottomline.

The customer interaction piece essentially harnesses the benefits of a two way interaction with the customer. This requires appropriate investment of time and resources to keep the interactions healthy.

The technology piece enables meaningful customer interaction at all points of customer contact. Ensuring that the right customer information is available at the customer contact point essentially is the main thrust of technology.

The rest of the book merely details the transformation of the above five pieces in various stages or variations of these pieces.

So long for now
:-)

Weekend thoughts

This has been a dull weekend. Aria has a cold and I am fighting it off as well. We have some social to attend this evening. Just completed searching the internet for an internet fax service. Its amazing that i could not find a single fax application that can use VOIP phones.

I mean think about it. Many people are switching to VOIP like vonage. There has to be an application( desktop) that can act as a virtual fax machine. Its just a signal that any software can send or recieve irrespective of the provider. This woudl be one time charge and easy use of service as needed. Instead there are internet fax services @ $10 a month. they are pretty good but for someone like me that recieves or sends very few faxes. it does not make sense.

I guess this calls for more research.

Have a full week ahead. so might be slow to update posts on here, though i wil have milions of thoughts.

:-)

The world we live in

I was not going to blog today but went through a Tom FriedMan talk on " The world is Flat" It was essentially a promo for the book but ended up creating 2 1/2 pages of notes.

I don't want to trash these and forget, Why not blog em and remember em for future reference?

Tom Starts by quoting Nandan Nikekani " The global economic playing field is being leveled and Americans are not ready", And how he interpreted this to mean that the economic field is being flattened and is a great achievement for Human enterprise. I totally agree on this Yay for the free market economy.

What is flattening? How is the flattening taking place?

Mr Freidman cites the examples of Jet Blue reservation systems where working Moms assist customers with their reservations from home. Balagalore BPO operations and the chinese equivalent for the Japanese consumers; And Mc Donalds consolidating orderprocessing in colorado springs.

He goes on to describe 3 Eras of globalization that shrunk the world

1. 1492 -1820 shrinking the world from size L to size M. The primary agent of change begin the nation state citing the examples of colonization, new world discovery and awareness
2. 1820-2000 shrinking from size M to size S. The primary agent being organizations and corporations spreading out in search of markets and resources
3. 2000 onwards shrinking from size S to tiny. The primary agent being the individual.

He argues that this ability of individuals to affect change facilitates and necessitates change

Freidmans proposition attributes the flattening to 3 basic attributes; 6 further additions and a tremendous multiplier

• Fall of the berlin wall: changes the perceptions of individuals and organizations breaking down the north south and east west divide giving rise to global. This was further facilitated by the rise of Windows (I believe Microsoft got some publicity here) basically the PC providing the first tool for flattening.

The PC provided a versatile tool for authoring information words; pictures; music and video.

"Enabled digital representation of everything"

• Rise of the browser enabled sharing of the authored content. Facilitated cheaply sharing of information and communication. This then triggered a huge investment into the Fibre optic networks and completely connected the world. He cites the difference between the railroads and the fibre optic backbone as " Railroads allowed americans to ride free; New network allowed Indians, Chinese and Russians to ride free"
• " Workflow" defined as protocols and pipes that allow work to flow. Connection and the PC enables the creation of a platform for collaboration.

• The 3 factors above provided the foundation for th efolowing 6 that acted as enhancers

• Outsourcing: Introduced by the Y2K

• Offshoring : Prompted by the chinese joining the WTO

• Uploading: Advances enablign individuals to promote themselves globally eg: Blogging; open sourcing; pod casting and wikipedia

• Supply Chaining efficiencies epitomized by walmart.
• Insourcing as epitomized by vertical integration of delivery companies transforming into logistic services companies like Airborne express, UPS etc..
• Informing: Empowered search of our own data; drilldown into history. Example TIVO is informing for television programs
• "The steriods" Advances and innovations in storage, VOIP, wireless and processing acted as the booster and a multiplier accelerating the flattening process.

He talks about the tripple convergence where the flatteners converged and tipped the economy into a well connected world with a different dynamic.

1. Convergence of the flatteners. advances in technology, helped outsourcing which in turn boosted offshoring. leading to gains in supply chaining and insourcing.
2. Organizations and individuals learned to adapt the habits and behaviors to take advantage of the platform. This has lead to horizontalization. Typical example southwest airlines replacing the ticket agent with eticketing which was replaced by self printing at home. Essentially replacing a paid employee with a machine and effectively changing the customers behavior to self serve at home saving equipment costs.
3. 3 Billion people from India, China and eastern bloc arriving at the convergence zone.

RESULTS: Vertical to Horizontal; creating a complex environment that promotes competition allows transparant connection and collaboration.

He concluded that we were blowing away the ceilings, walls anf the floor

No limits on uploading ( no ceiling)

No limits on outsourcing/offshoring (no walls)

No Limits to informing ( no floors) cannot bury anythins

Isint this exciting?

This brings many questions

1. What are the flaws in this model?

2. What do we not know?

3. What can we do about it?

4. How accurate is this theory?

5. If not this why is the world imploding? if it ever is?

So long for now

:-)

Career roadmap

I think Keith Ferrazzi is a great writer. I cant get enough of this book, well written and many A-Ha moments, expecially the kind that explain failures. I knew biases and filters were heavy roadblocks to self improvement but the magnitude always remained a mystery. Keith ( well i dont know him yet...) manages to atleast provide some examples to help there.

According to the Business connection center ( career services) letter they will help me with

1. Strengthening my tech heavy resume
• Task 1: Convert the UW Business school resume from responsibility oriented to results oriented.
• Task 2: Have Karen Fischler review my resume.
• Task 3: Review the resume with the career coach and finalize by tuesday
  
2. Write a good cover letter
• Task 1: Finalize cover letter with the the career coach
  
3. Research companies and industries
• Task: Come up with an action plan
  
4. Network with contacts
• Task: Come up with an action plan
  
5. Interview persuasively.
• Task: Develop Marketing materials

That is going to keep me busy for a while in addition to my commitments to deliver

• Balanced scorecard for non profits in general to the treehouse board
• Coach Soni in the real estate sales job
• Research and deliver an executive briefing to WestPac Bank executives and get a raiting of 8 or higher.
  

thats all for now
:-)