Having been a transport man for many years, I was happy to engage with many transport & logistics providers and others present. Participants were mainly from the Small to Medium Business (SMB) community. The session, was entitled Financial Management for Logistics and Supply Chains Post the Global Financial Crisis. In the backdrop of the economic climate it was a discussion around solutions to issues that come up when the question is asked, “Have you got a handle on your numbers?”
According to an interview with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz by Suttichai Yoon of National Multimedia, Asia itself has a huge domestic potential by having a large population base with savings and a wide demand for investment.
This is extremely true especially when your business is a service base and revenues are generated from services. Services business more or less focuses more on domestic economy compared to international trade like US or Europe.
Cash is king: Companies that came out of the last recession on top had an average net debt-to-equity ratio before the downturn of half that of the companies that were not successful. They also had more cash on hand.
and Taking out the wrong costs can be worse than taking out no costs at all.
I’ve meet business owners that focuses on cutting cost no matter what, the question is “where in the company should we start focusing?” Confidence on these questions comes from a reliable management information as cited by Colin that;
Reliable Management Information: The more volatile the market, the more you need to be able to trust your information.
Curiously, most companies stick with their same old reporting templates and key performance indicators (KPIs) because "this is how we’ve always done it". Forecasting and scenario modeling are critical in volatile markets.
Service companies are now likely starting to invest in building their data warehouse and investing in Business Intelligent to support their business needs in volatile markets.
Those already served or underway will benefit especially now as the economy is showing signs of up turn.. Those who don’t begin to address this and get this capability will surely have difficulty to sustain
Morphing a single idea into a multinational organization is not new. The concept of using affiliates and alliances to do this has also been with us since we had people on the planet.
Big or small, building a brand is the key and this in turns is about getting trust loyalty and buying habits of consumer communities established the higher this is the higher the value to grow. To be successful Brands therefore need to be a intuitive metaphor of of value, quality and service that customers accept without question.
For big business the recipe for growth is getting partners and affiliates also joining the game. It is also equally key to do this well to make the supply chain robust and impregnable. In combination it builds up a barrier to competitor entry and an ability to be able to add to the mix as product life cycles revolve in and out. Read more…
Last year with my team, we did a series of tailored seminars in Singapore Melbourne and Thailand. Each had a different local country theme. In Singapore for example we looked at future directions, in Australian we looked at maturity holding models for business and in Thailand we looked at the dichotomies of the internal and regional economic situation. That was a year ago at the time when world economies were facing big downturn issues and before the recession took its deep rooted hold. It is now interesting to look back on what we were thinking as we are now starting to see signs of recovery.
Here is the Thailand version we recorded at Bangkok at the Sukathai Convention Center event. It looked at the economic position from a Thai perspective. We used this to make generic points about performance management and how to use it as a methodology in business everywhere.
This session was sponsored by Infor, vendors of leader performance management software, We used this software to support our discussion.
Former IBM head Thomas J. Watson Jr, is listed as one of Time Magazines 100 most influential people of the 20th century.He lead one of the worlds best selling machines.from 1952 to 1971, In this 30 second voice clip he says that service is something most companies forget. Listen for yourself in this item recorded in 1993 the year he died. it says so much about what makes for success.
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Thomas Watson Sr, his father, joined IBM in 1915 the year after his first son was born. His regime began with a concept that the company would grow by THINKING as he said:
“We must study through reading, listening, discussing, observing and thinking. We must not neglect any one of those ways. The trouble with most of us is that we fall down on the latter – THINKING — because it’s hard work.
I found it quite interesting when I listen to the 1993 dated clip of his son who had headed up one of the worlds largest and most successful selling companies and his father who built it from less than 300 people after he joined it from NCR in 1915.
I prefer not to copy others for 3 reasons, 1. Original thinking is more fun plus it forces me to improve my game, 2. Readers and search engines will mark me down for good reason and of course abandon me for the original. 3. I want to build my own credibility by doing the work and being judged for that on its own merits.
In this case I make an exception, if only to share the work of a master I follow and admire myself, as do so many, He is one that cannot be ignored.
So just in case you missed Seth Godin’s post today here it is. It speaks for itself as he hits the spot with the human essence of all business. If you prefer just go straight to his blog, which I would hope by now is on your email subscription or RSS feed anyway. then you get his daily updates like me.
If you read my cut and paste version below and make any comment, the trackbacks on this post are set to go to Seth anyway. , Enjoy!
Finally, the joining of Yahoo and Microsoft seems done. Microsoft has invested $100 million on advertising Bing on just one theme: Searching must be as satisfying an experience as it could be.Their ads clearly direct criticism at Google, whose dominant brand name is synonymous with search. But the market share that Bing was winning was at the expense of Yahoo rather than Google. So now they are working together this will change.
Careers in advertising are now topping the lists. This straw poll clearly shows that. I just wonder what happened to the practical things like, being a policeman, a doctor, rocket scientist or a fireman or even making something. How things have changed! Or have they? Of course we do know one thing for sure. As the advertising market battles of such giants continue, we will always see mega money being spent for market share. So it is little or no wonder this is a focus for jobs for our kids.
And “selling the sizzle not the sausage” has always been the bit that robots cannot do. This is even more important now with Information products becoming as important as physical products. That needs clever people to ensure the emotional and social value of the benefits, as well as the functional value, is understood and delivered in the buying experience. So it seems advertising is all the go now to get a share of the market or just get you to buy, whatever it may be.
On all new potential business engagements, one of the biggest blockers to communication is the ease of access to information.
A prospect will always baulk at giving confidential information, even when it is vital to allow a vendor or consultant to provide a solution. Time and valuable communication are often lost and many times even the opporunity when the simple solution may be to just sign a non disclosure agreement so you can keep talking.
In most cases when I suggest this things start to move along. But then there is the issue of whose NDA form do we use. As people head for the legal department it has the poterntial to stall again. So to make it easy, I offer ours and often times it is enough and does the job well.
There are any number of forms around for this For example http://www.ndasforfree.com/ has some good formats to check for various scenarios Here is one we use that we find has quite simple language and works for us. Please feel free to give it a try or give me some feedback.
With my wife Margaret, in June this year, we visited the Bangkok chapter of Power Talk International . If you have never heard of Power Talk International you may be forgiven. To put it in context, in 1970 the Apollo 13-astronauts took with them three of its formerly named and long time established Toast Mistress Club seals to leave on the moon.
Power Talk, like so many others clubs of its kind, recommends public speaking as a must for anyone in business, or who has anything to do with communication and influencing people. But even if you are not so inclined, being able to face the fear of speaking in public is one of the best personal confidence and performance enhancing skills you ever can have.
As a past member from Australia, Margaret had been warmly invited to visit and give a talk. The regular 6.00 – 8.00pm. 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month meeting was at Goethe Institute , Bangkok.
In her talk she spoke about her experience growing up in the grape growing district of Mildura in Australia during the 1950′s. This region was an area that had been settled by a soldier settlement scheme. Her father, Bill Broes was a WW2 veteran, who will be 90 on 24th this August 2009, had bought up a quota. This was also at a time when Australia was still a developing nation, so it was an interesting time to look back now.
Here are some photos we took of the club and some speakers that I have set to some music in a video as a memento.
Recently, I was helping a business understand some proposals offering services for implementation of management performance reports together with analytics capability. What we found, at the end of the day, was unit pricing was the major “criteria” for selection of implementers, regardless of the application, solution, experience and confidence in making the project successful.
If you have ever been to a doctor, which choice would at the end of the day cost you more? An experienced doctor or a “fresh” out of college doctor? For a doctor rookie, stomach ache could come from various causes, so to make his assumptions solid, he will send you to do several lab testes, which more or less would be included in the final bill. Compare this to an experienced doctor who’s been in the field for a long time. He could almost conclude (from conversations and statistical background of the area and patients behavior) the likelihood of the cause without the need for lab tests.
Another example is in the construction business. Which choice would cost you more between an experienced carpenter and a plumber who also said he can do the carpenter’s job? A construction friend of mine tells me that for every project he handles, he only relies on experienced workers, for in the long run it costs him less. Being able to manage parallel tasks and calculating the amount of concrete and finishing the project within the deadline is the critical requirements that can’t be learnt from college.
Although the solution cost seems cheaper while only measuring from the proposed price, experience tells me that they’ve made the wrong decision and will have to pay the price.
It’s the time of the year again when many organisations are preparing plans and budget assumptions for year 2010. It may be good to time to dust off the steps we looked at in earlier articles budget assumptions, allocation and management of the budget.
Reports shows that, of the top 100 stock listed companies, the average time used for planning and budget preparation is not long at all. But this is in stark contrast to the time taken on analysis of budgets and revisions. This latter phase iterates over a much longer time as and discussion takes place as to how and if it is well coordinated to accommodate the companies’s strategy.
After top down business PLANS and budget ASSUMPTIONS are set, generally there are three budgeting phases. The first is a bottom up estimate of MANPOWER REVENUE and OPEX and CAPEX. This is then followed by ALLOCATIONS, and an operational PRIORITIZATION phase and finally the Capital FUNDING phase for approval review.
There are also many schools of thought that the budget step should be eliminated as it seems to waste so much time. This may good if rolling forecasts are well defined to place the annul budget but generally this only replaces the first phase. Many also subscribe the the thought that to much short term focus limits the organisation ability to focus and can cause it to falter. Doing budgets in the traditional way tends to allows greater focus also on the 3 year plan and draws a distinct line in the sand in on commitments by operations.
But either way, make no mistake, the budget is a vital process to get alignment for the organisation The better this is done the better the result. The final document is underpins the agreements reached for performance for the ensuing year and it a solid reference point to measure against and provides for consideration by external stakeholders . People such as shareholders, business partners, creditors and banks and financing institutions enjoy a much greater degree of confidence when budgets are well thought through and are likely to remain or increase any involvement.
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According to an 
Former IBM head 
On all new potential business engagements, one of the biggest blockers to communication is the ease of access to information.
Recently, I was helping a business understand some proposals offering services for implementation of management performance reports together with analytics capability. What we found, at the end of the day, was unit pricing was the major “criteria” for selection of implementers, regardless of the application, solution, experience and confidence in making the project successful.
It’s the time of the year again when many organisations are preparing plans and budget assumptions for year 2010. It may be good to time to dust off the steps we looked at in earlier articles 
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