Performance Controller

In this blog I am often guilty of preaching about getting all the facts to make decisions. It is all good motherhood stuff but can get boring without some reality.

Here is concrete case on Arcleor Mittal showing what could happen if you don’t get the facts to think things through.

 

Arcleor Mittal recently hired a new CEO. who was determined to purge the company of slackers. On a tour of the facilities, the He noticed a guy leaning against a wall. The plant was full of workers and he wanted to let them know he meant business.

He asked the guy, "How much money do you make a week?"
Surprised, the young man looked at him and said, "I make $400 a week. Why?"

The CEO said, "Wait right here." and went back to his office.

He came back in two minutes, and handed the guy $1,600, "Here’s four weeks’ pay. Now GET OUT and don’t come back."

Feeling pretty good the CEO looked around the room and asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-ball did around here?"

From across the room a voice said, "He’s the Pizza delivery guy from Domino’s."

This case study was reputed to be about about Arcelor-Mittal Steel. a global steel company headquartered Luxembourg,

I doubt if there is actually a Dominos Pizza shop in Luxembourg or if the case is even about Arcelor-Mittal Steel ,who despite this may as well enjoy the benefit of their brand exposure.

Contrary to good decision making being vital to having the facts, saying never let the facts get in in the way of a good story is equally divisive.  So I do apologize to Arcelor-Mittal Steel if this story about them or their CEO is not true.

Of course emulating John Cleese using humour to make a point is a whole lot better than a motherhood stuff, don’t you agree?

~000~

 

Many who know this case, know it actually quite and old and is likely to be attributed to others in earlier versions. This one is now doing the rounds again on the daily jokes circuit.

Sydney: Nov 8th, 2011

Here is an update on golfer Tim Wood, who looks like coming back to the PGA leader boards with his blistering Australian Open qualifying form today.

As a golfer how about this for a score over three rounds: 73 , 71 , and 69?

My cousin Pete, just sent me a note to say Tim is returning to top level golf after an injury, and shot this today in a PGA pre qualifying round.

A mug golfer, like me, cannot even dream about such scores. But for top players it is no cake walk either, with that level being needed just to make the cut to play in the game.

When we talk about focusing our Performance Management we know the value of feedback to achieve consistent results. But seeing this kind of performance reminds me that it needs much much more than just feedback and focus. Be it sport or any endeavor it also needs total devotion and practice at the game itself to overcome all the odds to be the best.

At a Family Christmas,as party about 17years ago I asked my then 13 year nephew what he wanted to do when he grew up. He was mad on golf so it was no surprise when he replied:

“I want to be a professional golfer”

Performance management was an understatement for this good natured kid who spent every hour he could practicing golf at a local course in Rosanna Melbourne, Australia near his family home.

His career, as many who follow golf may know, saw him join the professional ranks. The last few years has seen him with a good share of the Press and TV coverage of his leader board positions in the big PGA championships around the world including the British Open.

Peter Wood who is without doubt one of Tim’s most important supporters with wife Heather are Tim’s unofficial coaches, Pete, who is always humble about his son, is a golfer himself and these days ranks golf courses for the PGA. He is also the Captain of BarnDougle Dunes course in Tasmania which ranks as Australia’s No 1 Public Golf Course, World No 7 public access course and 35th best course in the world.

I do know too that despite his public reticence about his son’s success, he is understandably proud and updates our wider family on Tim’s progress from time to time.

I too am proud of my nephew but being more distant I am less reticent to pass on any news; especially to my Sports Bar friends in Asia to promote him. They in turn in know the “one of locals”  value of such an expat connections, and promote the local interest coverage when Tim is playing.

Today, I got this email news from Pete headed:

“A Tim Wood Update”

 

After battling the after effects of the ankle injury for so long, it has been a long time since Tim has played regular tournament golf at the top level.

With potentially 9 weeks on the Aussie tour before Christmas he was hopeful of regaining some sort of consistency within the first month so he could hope to be competitive again for the later tournaments.

He badly needed to make cuts and play tournament golf.

He came close in the WA PGA , missing the cut by one. This last week was the NSW PGA , his third tournament on the trot, and with rounds of 73 , 71 , and 69 he improved each day , made the cut, and made some money.

His attention now turned to this week’s Australian Open at the Lakes in Sydney. The field is one of the strongest on record – with 17 of the world top 25 playing as well as the likes of Tiger Woods , Greg Norman , Fred Couples.

Tim teed it up in qualifying this morning, and shot 5 under the back nine to be leading qualifying when the news came through that he was in the field anyway. He says the Lakes course is extremely tight and tough, and will be a strong test.

If he was in top form this course would probably suit him. He has been able to manage the ankle throughout the last 3 weeks, and will have treatment again the next few days to get himself ready for a big effort on Thursday.

Perhaps this year he will be known as "The Wounded Ankle" rather than "The Wounded Seagull" – haha.

Fingers crossed he can get it going

Aside from having the opportunity to promote my nephew, to keep faith with the context of this forum being about business, I reaffirm the lesson these professional sportsmen give us.

Just getting the intelligence from the coach about performance is not enough.  Like Tim Wood and his fellow professionals, being on top and staying there also means being well balanced, highly dedicated and prepared to always play the game at your best to win.

Sunday October 23 1:20 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend rumors and misinformation are playing havoc on concerned Bangkok people as the Northern suburbs continue flooding. Conjecture continues as to where when and how the water will flood into other parts city. At this stage the major flooding is 8-10 kilometers north of the city center.

Panic food buying on Friday also quickly peeked as supermarkets shelves ran bare. Replenishing shelves is being hampered by flood blocks to transportation of goods.

Complacency is not an option as the biggest and most arduous battle is yet to come this week. In the waiting game for many, as the water pushes more into Bangkok, the resilience of the Thailand culture to contain it is now sharply focused. Amazing discussion being heard, as the adversity goes on, is also about starting the rebuild even before it is all over.

Reliance on TV and newspapers and asking people is not always easily interpreted. For the record while doing my own research I grabbed a few items here to refer back to later.

The Nation Newspaper Headline say

Bangkok starts flooding, city residents prepare  October 23, 2011 10:49 am

Authorities said flooding in the capital could last several weeks. Some roads in the northern Don Muang district were waterways with small boats nearly as common as motor vehicles

Bangkok Post headlines this morning are reporting

Flood toll: 356 dead, 2 missing

Flooding still wreaks havoc in 28 northern, northeastern, central and eastern provinces as the flood toll stands at 356 dead and two missing,…

Floods close 227 bank branches

A total of 227 branches of commercial banks and a finance company have been temporary closed due to impact of the widespread flooding,…

 

Bird’s Eye On The Floods  An array of photos

Jet Ski Flood Relief             Video water craft used in flood management

Army Fixes Floodgate        Video showing the non trivial water volumes to be managed

Floods now in Bangkok     Graphic photos of flood in Bangkok Suburbs

With places Like Ayutthaya to the north and closer regions of North Bangkok all now underwater and their dormitory suburbs evacuated, the contained water mass is largely protecting Bangkok, Controlled release continue in attempts to minimize damage. All options including diverting the water down pumped out canals are being managed by one authority following a state of emergency declaration yesterday by the Thai Prime Minster.

Thankfully too there has been no rain since early this week,  A major concern now is the high tide period next week that will slow water release and cause back flooding.

The composite Pictorial perspective above shows how the flood from its origins, is now impacting Bangkok. The three months of monsoon rains have continued to fill the center of the country like a tap filling a series of baths with the fill rate more than 20% more than the drain plug can cope. With the subterranean water system also fully saturated, the surface is the only place for the advancing water to be channeled.

Priority work to manage the ongoing flow from central Thailand is being focused to protect central Bangkok.

It is now very clears too that the advancing floods will take several months to subside. Only then as Thailand cleans up will the enormity of the human loss and economic damage will be clear. This disastrous blow that has stopped in its tracks the growth and prosperity that Thailand had was experiencing that others in the world were not.

My beloved wife Marg sent me an article because my of lifestyle, like most people these days, is about managing stress.

She pointed out a coupe of good tips. especially no. 16. and not 1

“Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once. & Somedays you are the pigeon” and “Somedays you are the statue”.

I really like no 6, “You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person”.  Also a cleverly insightful is no 12, “The second mouse gets the cheese”.

Here is the full article

A management lecturer confidently walked around the room  explaining stress to her audience; with a raised glass of water. everyone thought she was going to ask the ultimate question, ‘half empty or half full?’…..

She fooled them all…, "How heavy is this glass of water?", she inquired with a smile.

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, "The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

She continued, "and that’s the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on."

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden – holding stress longer and better each time practiced.

So, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night… pick them up tomorrow.

Whatever burdens you’re carrying now, let them down for a moment. Relax, pick them up later, after you’ve rested. Life is short. Enjoy it and the now ‘supposed’ stress that you’ve conquered!"

STRESS IS SOMETHING THAT WE DO TO OURSELVES !!

1 Accept the fact that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue!

2 Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

3 Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

4 Drive carefully… It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker..

5 If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague

6 If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it..

7 It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

8 Never buy a car you can’t push.

9 Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.

10 Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

11 Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

12 The second mouse gets the cheese.

13 When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

14 Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

15 You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

16 Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

17 We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors,but they all have to live in the same box.

18 A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

19 Have an awesome day and know that someone thought about you today.

20 It was me, your wife!

Save the earth….. It’s the only planet with chocolate !*

This morning the flooding is advancing on Bangkok as many tactical defense plans continue

The Nation this morning reported

The government remains fixated on saving inner Bangkok – Its latest decision is to divert the relentless floodwaters down the eastern side of the city, from Sai Mai district to Bang Khen and Nong Chok.

In other news it was revealed the Government is to open Khong 1-7 water to speed up the water flow into the sea. Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Yongyudth Vichaidit  was reported by the Nation as saying he was assigned to talk to the communities  effected and there was no need to use force or legal means as the people now understand.

About the inadequate water pumps to help in the rescue, Mr Yongyuth said that the government has requested China and United States to urgently ship them to Thailand.

Mr Yongyuth insisted that there is still time to protect Bangkok and that BMA governor MR Sukhumphan Boribhat gives total cooperation.

It seems having a good personal plan plan is most important too. I got this message from a work colleague just now .

I’ll cannot go to office today because the village put up a very high sand partition and we cannot drive our car out now. I am now quite worried and have to stand by.

Bangkok Metropolitan here also provide some very useful reference information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday the edited interview we published showed the logistics of the advancing floods

Here is the full discussion with insights and possible lessons for those further south in the flood path who are planning and bracing.

Bangkok October 19 2011  8:00 AM

Here is an excerpt of an interview I did earlier with Dr Kitipan Kitbamroong  It paints a picture of the desperate battles still to come in this serious flood situation.

Bangkok flooding continues this morning spreading further into the city. Overnight it continued to converge dangerously fast as this funnel forced water mass is now spreading over the low lying Capital

In its path this two month buildup of monster waters from the North that has destroyed the country in its wake is grows even more and now concentrates for its final destructions as is heads for the sea

Dr Kitipan is now one of millions of victims. His home in Prutnmtani is totally underwater. I write this post his parents, who chose to stayed in their upstairs rooms in their house as the waters rose yesterday, are now being recued by boat of their rooftop with everything lost .

In his PhD work, Dr Kitipan made a study of flood water dynamics. He understands the bigger picture well and makes it very clear to many who struggle for information.

This excerpt is taken from a longer video where he gives greater insights not only at a personal level but on the fuller scale of the desperate flooding situation.

Tuesday October 18 2011 7AM

Here is a GIS map of the flooded areas which shows Bangkok now caught in the neck of the funnel. This zoomed out version shows the total  catchment with the blue areas already flooded and the red area that have already flooded or threatening today

The map zooms in on Bangkok show in  red the areas flooding  this morning as the volumes of water move from their north bound origins to the sea via the river system and low lying Bangkok area that lies in the path of the southbound wash

I just spoke to my friends, the Kitbamroong family hi are in their flood stricken homes in Prutumtani 25 kms to the North of Bangkok.

He said the waters are continuing to rise uncontrollably last night and today with little or no time for people to evacuate. Many who thought they were safe after a week of tensions and preparation were caught by surprised.

The floods discriminate with rich and poor alike effected. This morning many in poor and middle class villages are marooned or being recued from their flooded homes, And one area near a wealthy golf course residence in expensive homes there are too underwater this morning as floods rushed passed their sand bag barriers catching them by surprise too.

I have just been just told that in the Pratumthani areas the catchment containment is now passed over flow levels as the water is moving south and east again closer to Bangkok .

The Chao Pra River that weaves thru Bangkok is now full at capacity level has current draining capacity of 3.7 million liters per second with the high tide pushing back. Other rivers have much lower draining capacity.

From the top end of the catchment which is still filling a rate of 4.4 million liters per second the whole is now near full with the worse yet to come for days as funnels into  Bangkok this week is under an even greater threat of broad based flooding.

It is now all too late to contain now the break thru of levy banks and diversions as this morning more areas flooded nowonbly10KMstothenotrht of the city.This is made even worse as the balance of human pressures in those locations continues to place that under stress.

Here is a quick video we compiled last night before this update.

Mentor, mate and business colleague. David Ong, who works for Infor and who I am always happy to recommend, arrived into Bangkok from Kuala Lumpur this week and called me for a catch up.

It was a welcome visit for me to share my visit home to Australia to see my new grandson baptized.

At a usual out of office retreat at the Soi 8 bar, over a beer and some dinner we went on to discuss amongst other things, business opportunities and issues we have getting good consultants.

One issue we work hard on being able to differentiate is our value. In the end be-it in sales or service we know being a good consultant is about being able to add more than just information messenger or contractor value.

Becoming expert in our field for best value we both know works, as long as we know what is worth. As we talked David reminded me of a good old story about knowing the value of your expertise.

It was about a ship captain who was paying very port high fees after his engines mysteriously failed and he got stranded in port.

All efforts to restart them had failed, even after several high tech equipped experts were called in to get them started. As the port charges mounted the captain became even more frustrated, especially when an unlikely looking older guy arrived with a small tool box and began to work on the problem. On studying it for a few minutes the guy took out a small hammer and gave just a ding sized hit on one of the valves.

“Ok try to start the engines now” he called to the skeptical captain. To everyone’s surprise, as the first mate passed the order the engines sprang to life. Incredulous glances were shared; grateful high-fives were exchanged.

Later, a bill arrived for $10,000.00. The outraged captain exclaimed “All he did was hit a valve with a hammer, this bill is ridiculous.” as he asked his mate to get it itemized.

The old consultant responded with a breakdown that read: “Labour to hit the valve with hammer $10. Knowing where to hit: $9,990.”

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Steve Jobs, a drop in calligrapher student , master inventor, visionary,  entrepreneur and a man who changed so many lives and gave us the Mac, the IPod, the IPad and ITunes all as models, died today from a pancreatic tumor.

An apple fan or not, be assured you have had the benefit of this man who gave the world standards with class and set the benchmark for all software development.

News of Steve Jobs death in Europe today saw Apple shares drop 3pc. Curiously the US Wall Street market, which just opened, has responded to the news with Apple shares jumping 1.5pc to $378.25 at the start of trading.

Retiring from the Apple CEO job only a few weeks ago privately Jobs at the time indicated he knew he was going to die soon. He is also attributed as saying during a speech, "Death is very likely the single best invention of life"

Tributes are hitting the web at at light speed

Here are some I captured

Steve Jobs was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college, then changed the world What’s your excuse?

He was the ultimate perfectionist and demanded of himself as he demanded of others. We are better as individuals and certainly wiser as architects through the experience of the last two years and more of working for him. His participation was so intense and creative that our memory will be that of working with one of the truly great designers and mentors.

At a Stanford University commencement speech in 2005 Jobs said

"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." – 

 

Here is a Daily Telegraph video about his life

His passing is loss to the world.

He leaves us a legacy in one of his most important innovation insights.

You can only connect the dots by looking backward but you have to trust they will join up later as you continue to follow them.

May he rest in peace

 

Reference : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8809997/Steve-Jobs-dies-live-blog.html.. This article is being updated every 90 seconds

Data reporter Conrad Quilty-Harper has this graph, of Apple’s days as an underdog. In 2004 the company’s market value barely registered . The release of the iMac and later, the iPod, reversed sees Apple is now the second most valuable company in the world by market capital.

Here are links to the four parts of the Al Jazeera “Meltdown” series.

4. Meltdown: After the Fall Investigators begin to sift through the meltdown’s rubble. Shaken world leaders question the very foundations of modern capitalism while asking could it all happen again?

 

3. Meltdown: Paying the Price. In Iceland, protestors force a government to fall. In Canada, ripped off autoworkers occupy their plant. And in France, furious union members kidnap their bosses.

 

2. Meltdown: A Global Tsunami  The meltdown’s devastation ripples around the world from California to Iceland and China. Facing economic ruin, desperate world leaders are at each others throats.

 

1. Meltdown: The Men Who Crashed the World  Greed and recklessness by the titans of Wall Street triggers the largest financial crash since the Great Depression.

This series gets out in the open information to let people start to understand what was going on and the motives of those responsible for the global financial carnage we all endured and will pay for generations to come.

Accountability seems too soft a word. Not much good can be said about a flawed system that lets financial markets and property con artists unmercifully rip off gullible masses on a global scale knowing the consequences to leave the world in mess.

In my earlier post this week. The Economic Meltdown –Would you put this in the category of Oops? I referred to Nazi consequential thoughtlessness following madman leads of Hitler and Eichmann. It seems karma revisited with these reincarnations continued as bankers, property mongrels, financial gurus and influential so called world leaders.

In the final Meltdown episode, we hear about the Dubai sheikh who says the crash never happened; a Wall Street king charged with fraud; a congresswoman who wants to jail the bankers; and the world leaders who want a re-think of capitalism.

The financial crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing over 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the brink of insolvency.

The 1940’s German Nazi SS war criminal Adolf Otto Eichmann is considered a psychotic butcher by history. But it is sometimes put by criminologists who look back on his day of reckoning in 1962 and fear an even more frightening scenario that he was just thoughtless.

The Holocaust body count in the millions is long over but what of the 2008 meltdown? Can we look forward to a return to prosperity soon or is there more to come? And in the day of reckoning who was to blame and was it an oversight or a criminal act?

A fantastic Al Jazeera series called Meltdown, looks at those responsible and the global conspiracies that were behind the world financial collapses of 2008,

In the first of the four part series it is clear that by time the fire alarms and tornado sirens began their deafening call, it was all too late.

In March 2008 the US Government bankrolled a Bears Stearns takeover by J P Morgan to avert time bombs of imminent default, caused by failures of toxic real estate market financial products and highly questionable banker practices.  The US  knew such a failure would trigger an unprecedented financial crisis. But this wake up call went unheeded as instead greed driven bankers took it as a message that US Banks would not be allowed to fail.

Rampant greed with deal value stacking, sub prime mortgage scams continued until the Lehman Bros, fall after the British Government refused to underwrite a US Bail out plan. Their bankruptcy at 2am on September 15, 2008 triggered the world to plunge into ongoing economic crisis with predictions in 2011 of worse to come. A depression surpassing 1929 levels that did not see prosperity until THE late 1940’S is no longer unthinkable, as we see the ultimate flight to safety with gold prices soring . 

It has been said many times since that capitalist economic systems that leverage future value are corruptible and untimely is unsustainable. Before 2008 that was laughable wasn’t it?

That so called “All American” revered value we now describe as Avarice was founded on a cultural prowess that sees the western world with a generations of debt and an irreversible shift of economic power from west to east.

The meltdown has hurt us all.  But how did all go wrong and who was responsible to let it happen?

There are versions being circulated. This Al Jazeera one on YouTube seems to work well .  

( This is the first of a four part series and I suggest may be well worth the time to watch it )

Even though we may be commercially savvy, under pressure we can be vulnerable.

To retain and win business, paying attention on quality of service offerings, and following the customer is always right rule, is still a most important mantra. But as we buy, sell or delver our services, vetting and constant due diligence is equally important to stay in business.

The 1991 musical hit “Wind of change”, by the German band “Scorpions”, celebrates the political changes in Eastern Europe at that time. Fundamental economic changes now going on in the world also remind me of their namesake, the predatory venomous arthropod that features in the fable “Scorpion and the Frog”.

Being a romantic, my version substitutes the frog with a Princess and goes something like this:

The blind princess was reluctant to carry the Scorpion over the river ford in exchange for him guiding her to safety away from the dangerous rising flood waters. But she agreed when the Scorpion said “Don’t worry, if I were to bite you we will both die”.

Half across the scorpion bit her.

As the poison sent her into a dying coma, though her vacant eyes, she looked at him and asked him, “Why did you do that, you know we will both die now?”

“I could not help it” he said.” after all, I am a Scorpion”.

We know what happened to the Princess, but the fable only leaves the impression the villain met a watery fate too. But Scorpions we know too are one of the planets longest surviving creatures The oldest known scorpions were around 430 million years ago and that’s a lot of birthdays.

Rising waterlines of damaged and changing markets now see them out in abundance. In the chase to win business, Scorpions are lurking everywhere, waiting with plots to be no less than just to be good at being scorpions.

Naïvely believing that corporate governance laws, trade relationship commonsense and commercial fair play makes Scorpions harmless is naive Trying to outsmart them is just as dumb.

Aside from being fantastic survivors Scorpions maintain a role to kill to keep natural balance of nature. But other than that they add no other value. So why do business with them?

Whatever your role be it, buying or selling, it seems is vital to have set up fail-safe ways to recognize the tell tale signs of who we are dealing with to be sure Scorpions don’t get into deals.

And if they do you need tools and resolve to decide to just walk away.

They will survive, but then so will you.

When investigating capital raising and loan funding, the biggest challenge is to have a compelling story and financial reporting to satisfy the needs of an lender or investor.

With this alternatives can be considered, such as private equity in addition to debt.

Here are some ideas from a debt advisor to increase the chances of getting the capital you need for your business.

The Good Story. A robust and realistic bottom up business plan stressing stability and financially feasible growth. Include a projected income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow with a working capital analysis

Get to Know Your Lender. Maintaining close contact with your lenders to let them know you will always be is an ace in the hole. And having more than one is better.  You should then also understand their typical loan size they offer  what kind of businesses do they focus on and their terms approval and decision making process?

Consider Receivables Based Lending. Typically, such  lenders advance against the current assets of a business. While interest rates are traditionally higher, it is a viable alternative.

Private Equity. When considering , ask how involved will the equity provider be in the daily operations and will this firm have a exit strategy that matches our goals.

Hire an Ex-Banker. It’s the closest thing to an unfair advantage you’ll get, if you have someone with lending and credit experience. Or ask your accounting firm if they have a Debt Advisory service?

Sources: Web article at web article & and interview with Paul Wright – Debt Advisory Services Partner at Matthews Steer Charter Accountants

In most walks of life we have access to solutions we can use to help people. But getting the right one to be effective means we need to be able to listen first.

An email I got from a mate had some insightful advice in the form of this humorous story.

A drunk sat down on a subway next to a priest.. His tie was stained, his face was plastered with lipstick, and a half-empty bottle was sticking out of his torn coat pocket.

He opened his newspaper and began reading.

After a few minutes the man turned asked, "Say Father,what causes arthritis?"

The priest replied, "My Son, it’s caused by loose living, being with wicked women, too much alcohol, contemptuous manners  sleeping with prostitutes and lack of a bath."

The drunk muttered , "Well, I’ll be darned," Then returned to his paper.

The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized. "I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?"

The drunk answered, "I don’t Father.  I was just reading that the Pope does."

It concluded with:

When someone asks you a question make sure you understand it before answering”

We rightfully focus on Business intelligence as the way to manage mass amounts of data. This no brainer gives us access to markets with wider spreads of control and reduces or even sometimes completely eliminate costs. There is no argument in a growing business that using technology to create new markets, make or processes and change or reduce what can be an alarming increase in process inefficiencies that emerge as a business changes. But it must be done with management brains still in gear and their eyes on the ball to avoid what are my be obvious disasters.

It is also not uncommon for mature businesses to have state of the art technologies that are under employed alongside formerly expedient manual processes. Often time’s redundant jobs are also actually created when a small 20 minute a day task grows unchecked to be core.

In the interests of expediency for short terms success so often these manual process are created. Stopping this can cause brittleness to accommodate change, but as processes evolved past a use by date and become a core they must be moved and integrated into a core process. In a business, this is constant vigil for many to maintain a positive continuous improvement culture that naturally flushes into the open these expedient innovations so the business remains competitive and viable.

When business embark on improvement aiming to fix them as they upgraded there BI, attention to this is a must . These associated issues of data override the value of BI tools as reports are unable to show offline data. And unless these issues are addressed as part of the core reporting to keep getting  all the core data in one place the BI value will soon fail as departmental people become disenchanted and start looking for other solutions. This in turn compounds the issue more.

On the other spectrum too much reliance on automation can equally lead to issues and even business demise. Going to far with automation alerting and so on can cause the business management to take its eye of the ball with a sense of false comfort . Or worse automation that automates or removes human decisions may even stop an ability to stop what may lead to disaster.

An example is the macro impact of the power of super computers around the world now trading stocks with other super computers. These now make human traders obsolete and as they complete algorithmic decision based trades in microseconds and nanoseconds.

These computers are “co-located” near stock exchange servers to reduce the round-trip time for electrons passing through networks and complete their financial trades unattended at near light speed. Connected by fiber networks world markets too now have very limited ability for intervention to correct rogue behavior, be it unintended or malicious. So as financial markets are now so tightly coupled, the Butterfly effect and Flash Crash phenomena are more pronounced, where even the smallest event in a faraway place can cause a global market meltdown.

The same applies to a business where strategically a small change in the marketplace or in the business can cause it to miss its timing and go out of business overnight.

Keeping the balance is the job Executives at all levels must face in a way never before seen .

I know it is often said that figures can lie, but lies cannot figure. Or can they?

The trouble is suspended disbelief conditioning starts when we are small with fairytale stories.

This week I got a report from NYC Parking Ticket with the full set of New York City accounts for 2010 attached .

As I read them it seemed no wonder they are losing money.  I you want to know how not to do a set of accounts take a look art theirs .

When I checked on fairytale definitions I found the phrase refers to either; an interesting but highly implausible story, often and excuse; Or a story about fairies, told to amuse children. Either way the selective use or all-time favorite character, being money in the NYC report makes a good fairy story.

I also wrote back to my friend Larry Berizen, who with his partner Dan Giacomarro runs a legal practice in New York that focuses solely on helping customers resolve their parking issues in an aggressive money hungry monopoly worth over 600 million smakaroos to the New York City. In his unique practice he publishes a regular blog with tips and advice on how to handle what he refers to as the NYC parking warriors and the legal system that supports them. He finds their often cowboy style antics are frequently suspect when it comes to getting their their quota of scalps. (They call them KPI’s) This seems clear something is not right when the success rate on defending parking violations notices exceed a massage 30% of all issues.

Here is an edited copy of my note that I shared on his blog reply section.

Hi Larry,

I took a look under the covers at the NYC report for 2010. I spotted a few things as I did come counting.

The first was this set of confusing financial reports has a lot of numbers with very little that is easy to really understand; save the bottom line that says the city had lost a lot more money. The significantly large document of 377 pages to many may seem impressive, especially when you find sets of 10 year trends. But I could find no sensible performance based segmental or consolidation at all and it seemed to have repetitive and what seemed to be unrelated data with little or no performance context.

There is a great deal of detail on revenue by, what I would call products and services, but no service delivery costs are associated. Hence you cannot determine the service activity performance. Parking Meter Revenues of 147 million in the Transport Category plus $604 million in Fines in the Finance revenue together with scatted other agency parking contributed significantly to the 2010 total of 62 Billion

When I added up all the parking related revenues in all the agencies it was pushing 1 billion. Excluded grants and taxes this number that make up the majority of the total $62,813,314,759 to be exact. the parking business fell into the top 10% highest single contributors.

Interesting that such a large business has no bottom line e.g a gross contribution as all costs are lumped together under separated general activity headings with outgoings for all NYC programs .

On the subject of parking my count saw it featured 25 times in the report As such a cash cow and one of the top 10 numbers having a discrete set of incomes and direct costs would let us see how is it performing as a business. I bet they don’t know themselves so it is no wonder that are losing money if they don’t know how to account for their business. Anti-pellucidity is a word that springs to mind for most. Mushroom accounting is another.

Another related set of numbers I looked at were performance ratio across a 10 year span showing the % ratio of working meters. The health of the assets can be a good indicator of how well a business is running. (Would you get on a bus with bald tires? )

Here is the 10 history from their report and especially the last 5 reflects the total malaise.

Incidentally the Aussies have an an approach that has worked in the Gold Coast for 50 years.

There Business savvy traders understand the idea is of giving customers a good experience to keep them happy and keep them coming back.

But I wondered how NYC can run a legitimate parking business to make $146,784,983 in parking meter fees without enough working meters, let alone be entrepreneurial to provide such a value added service.

Jacking up prices is one way to achieve the 15% year on year lift in revenue to make budget so why bother incurring costs to fix the kit. Obviously the 100% revenue loss on 6% of the meters that went our of service in 2010 meant they somehow had to get the unit price up by over 25% or more Why not I say. recession or not, that seems fare doesn’t it, especially when they have a monopoly.

On the other had clearly service was not the budgetary aim as Fines were budgeted to increase 15% as well. But the rouge warrior strategy for that was clearly thwarted by the “Who Ya Gonna Call” warrior busters team of NYC Parking Ticket fame who kept it to $604,050,097. Obviously the extra speed Cameras noted in the statistical pages of the report, weren’t enough to boost the city coffers to expectations.

Another interesting chestnut that showed up was, of 24,369 City and State Disability parking permits issued during fiscal year 2008, an inventory check of seals on hand showed at least 22,000 were unaccounted for. Since anyone can create fraudulent permits using these seals it would seem an astute recipient who saw them fall of the back of the armored truck now has a license to print money? The audit report did not say someone’s head in the Department of Transport will roll, But before they do that I suggest NYC send out a ferret to check the parking places around town to find all the new Ferraris and Lamborghini’s. I bet they will find a few new ones parked by people who previously rode push bikes. Find them and the city could have its money back 10 fold from the black market traders.

Another proud boast on page XV of the cover letter to the People of New York said that improving both manual and automated City systems saw NYC collect outstanding parking tickets from claimants who received settlements from the City. Go get ‘em" team… It seems anyone who is lucky enough to get a settlement sure won’t be keeping it long with the NYC agency now commissioning ferrets to go out on the job to get their money back. Maybe they should do over the homeless as their next KPI

So, on balance it seems there is no balance in NYC books. To fix it needs some clearer and more transparent accounting and public servants who can balance business acumen to deliver on the city needs. Only then can they reverse the continued hemorrhaging that saw 2010 add another 10 million to make 108 million greenbacks down the tubes.

I know every fairy tale we read to our kids teaches them lessons we want them to learn. I love reading your stories Larry if not only for that reason. But the NYC city accounts looked like an implausible excuse. Getting to understand their cash cow parking business could actually be being managed as financial fiasco, could just the tip of the iceberg.

That’s Grimm for sure.

Cheers Gordon

Sherwood Group Consulting

 

Who You Gonna Call – Performance Busters !!!

Many people don’t realize the simplicity that comes when they have a reporting database to pull all their information together in a workflow based system. This lets everyone see and believe all their relevant data from anywhere at anytime.

Being in the industry of helping businesses measure their performance always keeps me busy. Helping clients who call to talk about ways to resolve consolidation and upcoming budget pain is actually nothing new.

But in the end it is these fundamentals that are always questioned by businesses. As they grow and best practices evolve with technology, it is important to have scalable and extensible control systems in place to manage their information.

Having a good performance reporting system even in small and medium sized business is vital. To stay in business we always need to find better ways to sped up and simplify things. That includes management planning and control processes too. Hence planning reporting system upgrades get especially critical as a company grows and adds more tenants to expand their markets and reach. Equally important is a getting scalable well maintained solution that can handle more as they grow more.

These days good integration is also an important consideration. But now even the small and mid-range ERP systems fit well into web database centric reporting systems that can pull it together fast. That means all businesses, big and small can now have the agility to plan and close the books fast.

Good database reporting systems are also now are much cheaper and easier to implement. Even so upgrades are disruptive so businesses worry they may have to go thru it all again in a just a few years as their new system age. To answer that, these days even maintenance and keeping up to date is done well by the solution providers whose survival depends on it. And in those eco-system, advisors like my firm are around in the middle to maintain watchful vigils for clients and stay current and keep the software providers on track. That means business always had somewhere to go to get help.

When an incumbent financial control function in a growing business it often find their legacy are quickly outdated and typically that is when they go looking for a new system. They then see the the risk of losing control and the need to remove the constraint for meeting their goals. Conversely when it comes to investing in cycle downturn times we are seeing a change of attitude. In the past slowdown meant change programs were put on hold as cash got tight. But we are seeing a change there now too with cloud based services going in to enable tactical and competitive rapid respond to downturn changes. This is allowing business to keep their cash while also being able to update to get change done quickly for their vital pin point decisions.

At the sharp end now typically this month also sees the flurry of year end closes around the world for all the June 30 companies. In the next month or so it will be hard to get the attention of CFO’s they deal with all their compliance reporting for the past year. For them it is too late this year to put in a Consolidation system as they continue to rely on their legacy systems with late nights and a lot of skill to bridge often cobbled systems with spreadsheets.

But for them it is too late to change this year. Simplifying the tasks will now have to wait to improve how they add it all up and sort out and eliminate intergroup trading, shareholders’ interests. Streamlining year end reconciliations, making adjustment journaling and responding to board audit committee demands are just a few of the issues they face where a new system will help. Complying with the imposing IFRS is also able to be handled well in updated reporting systems. And many know well spreadsheets are hard work when wrestling with things like with currency translations and the like to get the numbers all added up and in order. It also becomes quite nightmare that over time becomes unworkable unless a reporting database is added to allow data to be maintained in and ordered way with repotting able to be added and reformatted as needed

For the many closing the books now it is also a time to sort out who get what when it comes to income tax. We all know that one of our largest expenses in our businesses is tax. And the IRS across the globe universally get first dibs its share on any money a business makes make before the shareholders get a penny. It is not coincidence when you put those two words together namely ‘The ‘ and ‘IRS’, it spells ‘THEIRS’? With is the game over for last year to minimize tax, The scorekeeper can do no more than pay, as it is way too late to look at a planning system to get more efficient to reduce the taxes we need to pay.

So it is actually a really good time for all those companies out there who are really busy closing now to get their IT people to start looking around and do some homework to feedback on what’s possible. And as they do CFO teams should make notes on the issues and be ready to go forward when they can lift their heads.

Later in the year they can be ready to use the half year reporting cycle which is always a good time to test a change iron out the bugs for the next year end. And having a system for doing the budgets for their next year will then be quickly quickly upon them as is tax planning for the year in progress.

As advisors our firm, Sherwood Group Consulting works with and promotes Infor PM which is one of the leaders and meets all the criteria. Hence I am obliged to give them a plug or suggest you to call or contact us if you want some advice as to where to start.

To answer the question I am so often asked about where and when to start this video actually says it so well. Getting controls can start anywhere in the cycle and you can even start small then take it from there.

 

This video is excellent summary that makes the point well for CFOs’ and key business Executives to watch.

But plugs aside, if you are in business I urge you to get your CFO’s to take a look around and see how others are doing things and what systems are about that can help.

Sometimes precious metals are not where we expect them. The slurry pump, used in fine mineral extraction to sift thru residual mud to find metallic gold, is akin to an analytics based reporting systems used to finding information gold in residual data. Some also call this data mining.

But equipment and system that do the job well may be redundant without the skill to use them. This watch-word comment I saved by Ralph Eastman says it well:

It seems Business Intelligence is actually not about systems, but about getting an edge by finding a way look thru the slurry to find the gold.

An information approach may be about managing data to getting it all on one place. But without a plan on to use it, that can be worse than leaving it all over the place in the organization. An intelligent approach sees people using the informational value of data to manage performance.

Value also differs: For example Insurance and Credit card companies use Business Intelligence to manage risk; Retailers use Business Intelligence to predict customer behavior and Phone companies use Business Intelligence for loyalty management. In many cases these mature Business Intelligence users also still call it data mining.

It seems business Intelligence as it is evolving now is it not just about having a single source of data all stored in one place. but more about having a continued ability to create reliable access to mine lots of information that many be stored once in more than place.

Source “BI: Is it about the tools or managers who use them?” March 2010

In sport, it is quite fascinating to see how a top tennis player can react to a ball traveling at 190 miles per hour.

From an arm chair watching as a youth I have listened to commentators who could articulate how they did it and I recall once hearing that the player can actually slow down time.

But it was not until I went out on the court and began to emulate the masters did I leaned the skill of anticipation and practice.

But the real paradigm shift in my ability to play better only came when I got a coach who could objectively gather and analysis about information my performance and feed it back. To do that, he did not concentrate on my ability to return fast shots, but on my consistency to anticipated and be in good position. With good data such as how many good returns and unforced errors I made in both and absolute and percentage terms plus my coaches interpretation, I was able to concentrate on improving my anticipation and I began to make less errors. I found too I could then also slow down time.

On a different level to stay in control in my early days as a so called cost accountant and a budding coach,  an imperative was knowing unit costs of products and the stage cost of projects, That meant we could take care of the detail. But even more vital was knowing the variant mix in the total business to see where to concentrate. Hence I would spend a large amount of time in the factory and production shops observing and to understand the business flow and the pulse of the process.

I could them look at the summary data that often just confirmed the story I already knew to I could communicate it too others. It also let me see the detail for its worth on the low end to help fix the things inhibiting good results and on the high end to help lift the overall bar,

Observing also allowed me to see the reality behind the numbers I counted and to sort out the right ones to watch. My feedback to the business managers then had much more objectively as I could analyze and model all the information and make recommendations to improve the process and the overall business performance.

The more I did this the faster I got at anticipating. I also became impatient to get the information quicker as I learned my craft to coach to get better results. Like my tennis masters, I found cutting reaction time to make decisions was the key to winning the game.

These days as a head coach, like most of my peers I can manage a much wider portfolio that was not even possible then. And these days, with a wide span of cover, I can no longer manage by walking around as much as I liked to before.

But with now faster and brilliant visual information systems giving us feedback the span of control of the coach is now so much wider and even unlimited for those who are masters at it.

But in fact every manager can do with ease with what are a now quite pervasive enterprise tools; We call them business Intelligence tools and for very good reason as they allow us to access information to make more intelligent and timely decisions. These who embrace them and learn how to use them really do become masters. Are you one of them?

Lately, I read a lot about the high take up of Business Intelligence in organizations and wonder why. Like baking a cake Business intelligence is not new. Getting timely information in formatted reports with the ability to drill down to get more detail and do analyses is a fundamental of any business.

When you go to any business operation you do hear them talking about getting “Intel” to make a decisions. They talk about getting facts and information. And they go to their tried ad true performance reporting system to get it.

But a shift is apparent to belter use of technology with continually more an more as connecting processes as internet based services are now part of everyday life.

Like the ERP transformation of the General ledger to handle all the business transaction processes, business intelligence providers have learned to connect to these process so business managers can use all their data in an intelligent and systematic way.

So called numbers men in second chair jobs, namely the CFO have always intuitively used business Information to help managers mange the businesses. The business intent of this has never changed, but the technology has. The shifted in energy  not only means the numbers men can use the information, but the process that delvers it makes it consistent and pervasive for total collaborative use by everyone. Hence  decisions are also much faster. Today a CFO is even more still the central numbers man but no longer just the information gatherer. He or she is now the coach and the 2^nd chair business leader to help make decisions.

And many are women can also bake a good cake