Jun 30, 2011
Managing emerging Markets
A great article on how compnaies can get the best out of their emerging marekt operations. The use of “reverse expat” strategy is next big thing according to Jeffrey Joerres, chairman, president, and CEO of Manpower.
Identify Bad Strategy and Do Not Succumb To It
A great article on McKinsey Quarterly about how a leader should differentiate between a good and a bad strategy. The author goes on to discuss the hallmarks of a bad strategy:
I have condensed my list of its key hallmarks to four points:
1) the failure to face the challenge
2) mistaking goals for strategy
3) bad strategic objectives - fuzzy objectives
4) fluff.
Here are a few excerpts from the article.
Horatio Nelson had a problem. The British admiral’s fleet was outnumbered at Trafalgar by an armada of French and Spanish ships that Napoleon had ordered to disrupt Britain’s commerce and prepare for a cross-channel invasion. The prevailing tactics in 1805 were for the two opposing fleets to stay in line, firing broadsides at each other. But Nelson had a strategic insight into how to deal with being outnumbered. He broke the British fleet into two columns and drove them at the Franco-Spanish fleet, hitting its line perpendicularly. The lead British ships took a great risk, but Nelson judged that the less-trained Franco-Spanish gunners would not be able to compensate for the heavy swell that day and that the enemy fleet, with its coherence lost, would be no match for the more experienced British captains and gunners in the ensuing melee. He was proved right: the French and Spanish lost 22ships, two-thirds of their fleet. The British lost none.1
......if you fail to identify and analyze the obstacles, you don’t have a strategy. Instead, you have a stretch goal or a budget or a list of things you wish would happen.
.....“This is what Jack Welch says,” he told me. The text read: “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible.” (Logan’s reading of Welch was, of course, highly selective. Yes, Welch believed in stretch goals. But he also said, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”)
The reference to “pushing until we get there” triggered in my mind an association with the great pushes of 1915–17 during World War I, which led to the deaths of a generation of European youths. Maybe that’s why motivational speakers are not the staple on the European management-lecture circuit that they are in the United States. For the slaughtered troops did not suffer from a lack of motivation. They suffered from a lack of competent strategic leadership. A leader may justly ask for “one last push,” but the leader’s job is more than that. The job of the leader—the strategist—is also to create the conditions that will make the push effective, to have a strategy worthy of the effort called upon.
Another sign of bad strategy is fuzzy strategic objectives. One form this problem can take is a scrambled mess of things to accomplish—a dog’s dinner of goals. A long list of things to do, often mislabeled as strategies or objectives, is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders suggest things they would like to see accomplished. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into the strategic plan. Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long term” is added, implying that none of these things need be done today.
Good strategy, in contrast, works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes. It also builds a bridge between the critical challenge at the heart of the strategy and action—between desire and immediate objectives that lie within grasp. Thus, the objectives that a good strategy sets stand a good chance of being accomplished, given existing resources and competencies.
.......the transformational leader (1) develops or has a vision, (2) inspires people to sacrifice (change) for the good of the organization, and (3) empowers people to accomplish the vision.
Despite the roar of voices equating strategy with ambition, leadership, vision, or planning, strategy is none of these. Rather, it is coherent action backed by an argument. And the core of the strategist’s work is always the same: discover the crucial factors in a situation and design a way to coordinate and focus actions to deal with them.
Read full artcile HERE
I have condensed my list of its key hallmarks to four points:
1) the failure to face the challenge
2) mistaking goals for strategy
3) bad strategic objectives - fuzzy objectives
4) fluff.
Here are a few excerpts from the article.
Horatio Nelson had a problem. The British admiral’s fleet was outnumbered at Trafalgar by an armada of French and Spanish ships that Napoleon had ordered to disrupt Britain’s commerce and prepare for a cross-channel invasion. The prevailing tactics in 1805 were for the two opposing fleets to stay in line, firing broadsides at each other. But Nelson had a strategic insight into how to deal with being outnumbered. He broke the British fleet into two columns and drove them at the Franco-Spanish fleet, hitting its line perpendicularly. The lead British ships took a great risk, but Nelson judged that the less-trained Franco-Spanish gunners would not be able to compensate for the heavy swell that day and that the enemy fleet, with its coherence lost, would be no match for the more experienced British captains and gunners in the ensuing melee. He was proved right: the French and Spanish lost 22ships, two-thirds of their fleet. The British lost none.1
......if you fail to identify and analyze the obstacles, you don’t have a strategy. Instead, you have a stretch goal or a budget or a list of things you wish would happen.
.....“This is what Jack Welch says,” he told me. The text read: “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible.” (Logan’s reading of Welch was, of course, highly selective. Yes, Welch believed in stretch goals. But he also said, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”)
The reference to “pushing until we get there” triggered in my mind an association with the great pushes of 1915–17 during World War I, which led to the deaths of a generation of European youths. Maybe that’s why motivational speakers are not the staple on the European management-lecture circuit that they are in the United States. For the slaughtered troops did not suffer from a lack of motivation. They suffered from a lack of competent strategic leadership. A leader may justly ask for “one last push,” but the leader’s job is more than that. The job of the leader—the strategist—is also to create the conditions that will make the push effective, to have a strategy worthy of the effort called upon.
Another sign of bad strategy is fuzzy strategic objectives. One form this problem can take is a scrambled mess of things to accomplish—a dog’s dinner of goals. A long list of things to do, often mislabeled as strategies or objectives, is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders suggest things they would like to see accomplished. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into the strategic plan. Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long term” is added, implying that none of these things need be done today.
Good strategy, in contrast, works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes. It also builds a bridge between the critical challenge at the heart of the strategy and action—between desire and immediate objectives that lie within grasp. Thus, the objectives that a good strategy sets stand a good chance of being accomplished, given existing resources and competencies.
.......the transformational leader (1) develops or has a vision, (2) inspires people to sacrifice (change) for the good of the organization, and (3) empowers people to accomplish the vision.
Despite the roar of voices equating strategy with ambition, leadership, vision, or planning, strategy is none of these. Rather, it is coherent action backed by an argument. And the core of the strategist’s work is always the same: discover the crucial factors in a situation and design a way to coordinate and focus actions to deal with them.
Read full artcile HERE
Social Strategy- Critical for a business's future success- 78% Executives say
While the data is for the US, I am sure there is a great learning and change of attitude that can be picked up by the Indian Execs.
May 17, 2011
Twitter Overloaded and Over Capacity !!
Twitter's having a hard time time catching up with all the traffic its getting looks like! Came across this message just now- disappointing !
Is this acceptable from a company valued at about $4 billion with millions of active dedicated users?
This is not the first outage issue either - more here : status.twitter.com
May 16, 2011
HBR Discussion on how Microsoft can Destroy Skype (My thoughts in Sync with HBR's authors)
In sync with my article on Microsoft's acquisition of Skype and concerns in there (on May 10th, 2011)- HBR's recent article (on Friday May 13, 2011) warns Microsoft (MS) and predicts how MS can make this all go wrong if not careful.
The warnings are around possibly destroying Skype as as a brand and potentially not knowing how to integrate Skype (or recklessly doing so) within MS, and needless to say how the bureaucratic red tape within MS could kill Skype.
The HBR article can be found HERE.
You can read my article HERE- very similar thoughts as the HBR post.
The warnings are around possibly destroying Skype as as a brand and potentially not knowing how to integrate Skype (or recklessly doing so) within MS, and needless to say how the bureaucratic red tape within MS could kill Skype.
The HBR article can be found HERE.
You can read my article HERE- very similar thoughts as the HBR post.
May 10, 2011
Microsoft Eyes Skype
You must have heard the news - Microsoft (MS) is close to sealing the deal with Skype. The acquisition cost is rumored to be between $7 and $8 Billion.
The last time I heard of such a high value buy from Microsoft it was 2007 and the company was aQuantive. The cost- $6 Billion.
Microsoft acquired this firm for its creative and digital ad agency (Avenue A Razorfish) and adserving platform (Atlas DMT). This saga was of great interest to me as I was with Avenue A Razorfish, though before the acquisition, but was interested in knowing how this would end. Especially knowing that these two firms had completely different cultures, operational philosophies and at some level Atlas would be redundant considering MS already had a ad serving platform of its own, made the story even more interesting to me. I followed the news online and through friends at both MS and Avenue A and the industry.
Of course as one could guess based on Microsoft's history- the integration of aQuantive did not happen smoothly and MS sold Avenue A to WPP and launched its own search service and technology. aQuantives original management left MS within a year or two.
Now, coming to the Skype story- Skype became popular by providing voice and video calling services for free or for cheap to the mainstream consumers- especially in the international calling segment. The interface is simple and easy to use. The quality of voice and videos crisp. With Skype credits users can 'charge' their account and call anywhere in the world to any land-line or mobile number. Users could also forward their calls from their skype numbers to personal phones.
Skype is reasonably well established in the consumer as well as in the small and medium business world. With the acquisition of Skype MS gets this large consumer base and the opportunity to integrate Skype's technology with its existing platforms. For example, MS has a product called Lync which integrates email, IM and voice on to one platform. Skype can play a major role here.
More importantly I see Skype playing a vital role in supporting MS's Windows Phone 7 OS. MS has been struggling to establish itself as a strong player in the mobile segment and Skype could be the answer, providing a little bit of an edge - and MS needs every little bit of the edge it can get.
One way to make this partnership work could be by using Skype on Windows enabled devices. Using Skype consumers could now make free or cheap calls (within and out of their network). While feasible, this comes with its own challenges of dealing with operators. In fact the way I see it, this strategy could be more successful out side of the US, such as in India, where the telecom markets are device driven and not operator (as in the US).
Given the history of MS though it will be interesting to watch if Skype actually makes it out of the "blackhole" once the deal is closed and it goes in for integration with MS's existing products (which is where I see Skype's true value to MS) or like its previous acquisitions Skype too will be consumed, and possibly painfully so, by the giant. Only time will tell.
The last time I heard of such a high value buy from Microsoft it was 2007 and the company was aQuantive. The cost- $6 Billion.
Microsoft acquired this firm for its creative and digital ad agency (Avenue A Razorfish) and adserving platform (Atlas DMT). This saga was of great interest to me as I was with Avenue A Razorfish, though before the acquisition, but was interested in knowing how this would end. Especially knowing that these two firms had completely different cultures, operational philosophies and at some level Atlas would be redundant considering MS already had a ad serving platform of its own, made the story even more interesting to me. I followed the news online and through friends at both MS and Avenue A and the industry.
Of course as one could guess based on Microsoft's history- the integration of aQuantive did not happen smoothly and MS sold Avenue A to WPP and launched its own search service and technology. aQuantives original management left MS within a year or two.
Now, coming to the Skype story- Skype became popular by providing voice and video calling services for free or for cheap to the mainstream consumers- especially in the international calling segment. The interface is simple and easy to use. The quality of voice and videos crisp. With Skype credits users can 'charge' their account and call anywhere in the world to any land-line or mobile number. Users could also forward their calls from their skype numbers to personal phones.
Skype is reasonably well established in the consumer as well as in the small and medium business world. With the acquisition of Skype MS gets this large consumer base and the opportunity to integrate Skype's technology with its existing platforms. For example, MS has a product called Lync which integrates email, IM and voice on to one platform. Skype can play a major role here.
More importantly I see Skype playing a vital role in supporting MS's Windows Phone 7 OS. MS has been struggling to establish itself as a strong player in the mobile segment and Skype could be the answer, providing a little bit of an edge - and MS needs every little bit of the edge it can get.
One way to make this partnership work could be by using Skype on Windows enabled devices. Using Skype consumers could now make free or cheap calls (within and out of their network). While feasible, this comes with its own challenges of dealing with operators. In fact the way I see it, this strategy could be more successful out side of the US, such as in India, where the telecom markets are device driven and not operator (as in the US).
Given the history of MS though it will be interesting to watch if Skype actually makes it out of the "blackhole" once the deal is closed and it goes in for integration with MS's existing products (which is where I see Skype's true value to MS) or like its previous acquisitions Skype too will be consumed, and possibly painfully so, by the giant. Only time will tell.
May 2, 2011
Brand Success Measured As Consumer Expressions- A Coca-Cola Story
Coke's CMO Joe Tripodi wrote a great article on how their firm is moving away from impressions to "consumer expressions"- i.e. how and what consumers express about the brand Coca-Cola. It is about how a brand is perceived, it is about what is talked about, it is about WOM, it is about social marketing, it is about how you as a brand facilitate social media/ marketing and above all it is about how you connect with you fans and how you maintain their trust to keep them loyal.
Some fascinating points he brings up- excluding the fact that Coke's Facebook fanpage wasn't started by an employee but launched by two consumers in Los Angeles.
1) We can't match the volume of our consumers' creative output, but we can spark it with the right type of content.
2) Accept that you don't own your brands; your consumers do.
3) Build a process that shares successes and failures quickly throughout your company.
4) Let go of control and give it to your consumers- In 2009, Coca-Cola launched Expedition 206. Consumers voted for the three people they wanted to see travel the world as Coca-Cola Ambassadors, visiting most of the 206 countries where Coca Cola is sold and driving an online conversation about what makes people happy around the world.
Some fascinating points he brings up- excluding the fact that Coke's Facebook fanpage wasn't started by an employee but launched by two consumers in Los Angeles.
1) We can't match the volume of our consumers' creative output, but we can spark it with the right type of content.
2) Accept that you don't own your brands; your consumers do.
3) Build a process that shares successes and failures quickly throughout your company.
4) Let go of control and give it to your consumers- In 2009, Coca-Cola launched Expedition 206. Consumers voted for the three people they wanted to see travel the world as Coca-Cola Ambassadors, visiting most of the 206 countries where Coca Cola is sold and driving an online conversation about what makes people happy around the world.
Building Confidence
Amazing article about that gives tips on how you can help yourself succeed. A must read even for those of you who think you are successful- don't forget your definition of success might not be complete. This article will definitely help you get that additional leverage to do even better.
Some highlights:
Get out of your own way
Confident people aren't only willing to practice, they're also willing to acknowledge that they don't — and can't — know everything. "It's better to know when you need help, than not," says Gruenfeld. "A certain degree of confidence — specifically, confidence in your ability to learn — is required to be willing to admit that you need guidance or support."
On the flip side, don't let modesty hold you back. People often get too wrapped up in what others will think to focus on what they have to offer, says Katie Orenstein, founder and director of The OpEd Project, a non-profit that empowers women to influence public policy by submitting opinion pieces to newspapers. "When you realize your value to others, confidence is no longer about self-promotion," she explains. "In fact, confidence is no longer the right word. It's about purpose." Instead of agonizing about what others might think of you or your work, concentrate on the unique perspective you bring.
Make sure you approach only those who care for you and those you trust in for this second one--
Get feedback when you need it
While you don't what to completely rely on others' opinions to boost your ego, validation can also be very effective in building confidence. Gruenfeld suggests asking someone who cares about your development as well as the quality of your performance to tell you what she thinks. Be sure to pick people whose feedback will be entirely truthful;
Take risks
" ... Failure can be very useful for building confidence,"
'
'
'
"In fact, stressing yourself is the only way to grow. " (with this one I suggest be cautious as there is always a good and bad stress- try and minimize the bad one if you can)
Click HERE to read this article in full.
Some highlights:
Get out of your own way
Confident people aren't only willing to practice, they're also willing to acknowledge that they don't — and can't — know everything. "It's better to know when you need help, than not," says Gruenfeld. "A certain degree of confidence — specifically, confidence in your ability to learn — is required to be willing to admit that you need guidance or support."
On the flip side, don't let modesty hold you back. People often get too wrapped up in what others will think to focus on what they have to offer, says Katie Orenstein, founder and director of The OpEd Project, a non-profit that empowers women to influence public policy by submitting opinion pieces to newspapers. "When you realize your value to others, confidence is no longer about self-promotion," she explains. "In fact, confidence is no longer the right word. It's about purpose." Instead of agonizing about what others might think of you or your work, concentrate on the unique perspective you bring.
Make sure you approach only those who care for you and those you trust in for this second one--
Get feedback when you need it
While you don't what to completely rely on others' opinions to boost your ego, validation can also be very effective in building confidence. Gruenfeld suggests asking someone who cares about your development as well as the quality of your performance to tell you what she thinks. Be sure to pick people whose feedback will be entirely truthful;
Take risks
" ... Failure can be very useful for building confidence,"
'
'
'
"In fact, stressing yourself is the only way to grow. " (with this one I suggest be cautious as there is always a good and bad stress- try and minimize the bad one if you can)
Click HERE to read this article in full.
Jan 26, 2011
Apple's App Store on Twitter
Apple Brings the App Store to Twitter http://t.co/MEaFLhv via @mashsocialmedia @mashable
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