If you do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten!

The title of this posting has never been true then in recent times. We have had people in roles where we simply replaced them in the roles and expected a better result. After trying this 2 times and failing I think it became apparent that it wasn't necessarily the person but the role and the structure. It was almost like the structure never allowed for its success.
So thinking about this concept I am applying it to many parts of the business. So it will be interesting as to how things go over the next 2-3 years and whether the decisions made now will reap success.

You have to try new things in different ways. Keeping on doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result is probably insanity. Although its not obvious at first.

Does flatter mean fitter?

I have been reading many articles around the topic of flat management - through a reduced number of levels from the CEO down, it should promote a leaner and more open organisation. Whilst many flat organisations are smaller in size than their larger hierarchical structure style organisations, I often wonder whether the larger ones that have many levels of hierarchy hide under performance.
I am all up for empowerment, delegation and accountability, however I wonder if a flatter management structure encourages that, impedes that, or neither...

Is a quick response considered "desperate" or "responsive"?

We were in discussions today with various legal firms (they will remain nameless). We are looking to get some work done so we have briefed the work out to a few firms and looking to see what comes back.

I am writing about one of the firms we met up with. We met for an hour with a partner and briefed him on the work. We discussed rates and estimates at the end of the meeting and he offered to send through a proposal immediately. We thought nothing of it as we thought "as if we will get this straight away"?

Well we were wrong. We not only got it immediately, we got it within the hour :).
In the e-mail it stated the costs and that the partner was in a position to start in the coming days with the first draft of what we wanted next week. WOW!

So do I think that,
a) The firm is desperate for the work and I perhaps should be worried? or
b) They are super responsive and keen for the business and its an example of what I should expect from here on in?

Now in the current climate I should appreciate this behaviour as things aren't that full on for professional services firms, so when a client is there you want to impress them and get their business. But what behaviour is "desperate" rather than appropriately "responsive"?

I like the responsiveness and it always presents an opportunity to negotiate on rates anyway. :)

Anyone have any other thoughts/comments?

When is the right time to "place the bet"?

No I am not into gambling or the horses for that matter. I am referring to the new idea, new region, new product that a company creates (referred to investment areas). During the growth of any business new products, regions and/or ideas are created and launched into. Most businesses that do this organically find it difficult to really invest in these products "properly".

Existing methods for "proper" investment are difficult to obtain and what's even more difficult is determining the internal investment. How do you focus on multiple "investment areas" effectively? How do you invest in them that can fully realise their potential but at the same time allow you to hedge so that the core business doesn't fail?

Is it possible to hedge and also ensure that each investment area has been invested in to the max?

I ponder about this all the time and wonder if we should "properly" invest in this no, no maybe not. Maybe we should in invest in something else or the next idea???

Some part of me almost would rather place the bet in an all or nothing approach that at least allows for no regrets. As they say no guts no glory... but sometimes it's the no guts that tells you that now isn't the time and this isn't the right idea, but you then go on with life regretting...

If I was to use Jim Collins' recommendations from Good to Great, it would be to invest BIG in the product you can be the best in the world at. I love it - simply but so powerful.

I guess I don't think I will stop pondering... but hopefully the pondering will stop soon and the betting will begin...

(BTW, I'm back to blog a little more)

Will KM be as important as ERP?

The ERP is obviously a very important part of every organisations core systems. In the big end of town it’s referred to as ERP (aka SAP, Oracle, JDE, etc...) but most people will know it as the finance system.
The finance system is most organisations' core mission critical system. Without it, they can't invoice, process, trade, receive and basically operate the organisation.

The finance systems in all organisations have really only become the lifeblood because the traditional finance system of GL, accounts payable/receivable have been extended to major platforms (now known as ERP) and do a lot more. Take SAP for example - it has a portal, supply chain mgt, business process mgt, integration, etc... to name a few, so it’s obvious that this is the major platform for many organisations.

However the ERP platform deals with structured processes very well and transactions very well. There is still a massive gaping whole with unstructured systems. I am talking about e-mails, documents, web sites, images, etc..., the list goes on. This makes up for most of the data within an organisation but most of the time it is dumped on file shares (similar to the storage bin) and rarely recalled again.

Enter KM = Knowledge Management.
Knowledge Management as defined on Wikipedia is
"Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences."

Yes I know that doesn't state unstructured explicitly but that's the greatest challenge.

How do you capture, retain, reuse, manage information that becomes tacit knowledge throughout the organisation to then harness and compete on a far grander scale.

I believe organisations that embrace knowledge management as a key executive item on the agenda (i.e. hire a CKO) and invest appropriately will deliver tens of times bigger returns than their competitors. The reason is because their ability to gather, store, share and reuse will be so powerful it will get products to the market faster, more reliably and with greater competitive advantage. Knowledge will be retained within the organisation rather than walked out when staff leave.

Watch, KM will one day be as important if not more important than the ERP.

CFO's better realise this, and get on the bandwagon.

Librarians, records managers, knowledge managers, and everyone else in this industry - your career prospects are very exciting.

Bigger company <> Happy Staff <> Happy Customers

To clarify, my posting is about whether a bigger company means happier staff and happier customers.

I know it's obvious, but the answer is no. It doesn't even mean happier shareholders and executives.

We grew pretty rapidly over FY07-08 and took on more customers and in turn more staff, and obviously our revenues and profits grew also, but if you ask staff and customers - were they happy with Unique World? Or "happier" with Unique World than previous years, the answer was more than likely No. I didn't ask them but I could certainly guess.

On the other hand, take the current times for example. Yes we have contracted and gotten a little smaller, but the engagement with staff has improved (still not perfect) and so has our relationship with customers. Actually the feedback from customers is very positive, so much so, that I cannot remember having so many satisfied customers with so few unsatisfied customers. There would always be a handful of challenged projects that needed constant management, but we have very few at the moment.

Maybe its us, the customers, the market, probably a combination - but one thing is for sure I am a lot happier now (yes its a challenging time and not easy) than I think I was 12 months ago. Of course the numbers were better then, but many things around me were a struggle.

Although the next 12 months are going to be an enormous challenge with the whole GFC, I think that if we stick to our guns, remain focussed and nimble, we will succeed and have very happy staff and customers at the same time.

Just ask Eddy Groves what he have rathered...

In this market (and always), stick to your core business

The amount of times I have had discussions with people around "diversifying" and getting into new businesses/offerings because of the current times scare me.

Everyone has heard about "Stick to your core business" and you will succeed - there are countless management books and leaders spruiking this - so why, just because of the slow down is it a reason to get into "more businesses"?

I know all the obvious reasons, but I don't think that now is any different to the boom times when evaluating "new" businesses so why do people look more around this topic now than in the good times. It's because when business slows down in your core business you are often drawn to other business offerings that may be booming more.

I am not saying not to evaluate new business offerings but you should definitely think twice (or maybe even 1 times).

One of the fundamentals I have always learnt is to play to your strengths. So if the business is going well, work out what is working well and do more of it. Don't slow that down and do other things that will impact your ability to do more of what you do well.

Today the current economic conditions seriously test this theory about core business - but personally I think now is the BEST time to be doing more of what works, rather than the other way around.

If business is slowing, it doesn't mean you are not good at your core business - it means you have to go to either do more with existing customers, or find new customers - but DO NOT start new offerings and stop doing your core business just because things have slowed down.

Now is the hardest time to be setting up new businesses organically.

Go get more customers. (I know that is easier said than done)

I can personally vouch for this over the last 4-5 months. It has been a challenge that's for sure, and there was a time I really questioned our strategy and core offerings, but sticking to our guns has worked out - we just needed to speak to more customers.

Although the storm hasn't completed passed, I can see blue sky now.