A company’s response to change determines its chances of survival—as Jonathan MacDonald writes in his recent book, “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.”
I grew up in the family business. I say ‘grew up in’ literally. My parents worked seven days a week, so my standard location before I could walk was underneath the till. Then when I could walk I was pricing goods and cleaning stuff. Things were far more straightforward when there was one other member of staff, than fifteen years later with over 20,000 items of stock and almost 100 people involved. I lived through every element of that scale, all the way through to my parents’ retirement when I pivoted the business into a different sector.
I can remember the days when stock control was manual. Paper and pen. I can remember when my dad and I booted up the first computer system, long before the World Wide Web, and we gazed in wonder at the black screen with green text saying Xenix. It was an extremely popular version of Unix in the ‘70s and ‘80s and it revolutionized our little company. We were able to link the tills to the ordering system, and then via a phone line we could actually communicate with suppliers. This was space-aged stuff at the time, I can assure you.
Every memory I have involves a change. A movement from one state to another. I remember that we did not really know what was coming around the corner—we just had a very clear objective in mind and the new tech available, or the changing customer expectations, were just part and parcel of running a business. We never considered that change would stop or that change was a bad thing, we just got on with it. Every day and every night.
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Denne historien er fra September - October 2018-utgaven av The Smart Manager.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Building A Quality Culture
A strong company culture defined by its values, beliefs, and behaviors, has a profound impact on its products and services. More so in today’s VUCA world, where to stay relevant and maintain a competitive edge, it is critical for organizations to build a culture that focuses on quality. Suresh Lulla, author of Quality Fables, elucidates through significant examples how creating a culture of quality is imperative to driving success and productivity.
Customers For Life
The history of General Motors in India can be traced back to the 1920s, when it became the first automotive company to set up an assembly plant in the country. The relationship since then has not been as fruitful as GM would have hoped. GM’s flagship brand, Chevrolet, was introduced in India to build upon the success of the popular Opel marque. However, success has been fleeting at best—an issue that GM India is determined to rectify. It aims to do so by adopting a two-pronged approach: using customer feedback to influence product development, and delivering a superior sales-to-service experience.
The Digital Shift
… technology will radically disrupt HR in the near future. Indeed, it is already changing the way HR works and the role it plays and opening the door to a new type of “digital HR” function.1 The rise of digital and social media is changing the dynamics of HR and creating new ways of hiring, engaging, and retaining employees.
The Story Of Telling
“The best brands are built on great stories,”* this remark by Ian Rowden best captures the strategy of diligent brand building. Much more than attractive logos or the products themselves, what builds a brand is how successfully a story is woven around it. Brand marketers have to be good storytellers indeed.
Complexity Is Simpler Than You Think
Kay Kendall and Glenn Bodinson, authors of Leading the Malcolm Baldrige Way, shatter myths about excellence models such as Baldrige and EFQM.
Proponents of Isolation Never Become Victors
Multilateralism in the political and economic space has always led to frameworks that favor the mighty. WTO was no exception. With agriculture kept out of its purview, it could never become a truly fair and free trading system. China was the only large emerging economy that exploited relative openness in low-cost manufactured goods to take full advantage of the system. Other emerging economies could at best garner minor gains.
A History Lesson (From Year One) for Trump and the Brexit Crowd: Isolationism Has Never Worked!
Professor Stephane Garelli on growing isolationism.
A Win-Win Game
Business is not a sport where some stakeholder has to lose or fare badly for others to do well. Building an atmosphere of trust and transparency between all stakeholders will help companies retain them even during adverse times.
A Sustainable Model
With a total market value of $4.3 trillion and an employment base of at least 1.3 million direct employees and millions of others indirectly employed, platforms have become an important economic force.*Companies today are constantly looking for ways to build platforms—Infosys Ltd announced its plans of monetizing its platforms to make them a $2 billion business by March 2021. But are all platform businesses successful?
Custom Made
…three in four consumers said they receive too many emails from brands, and one-fifth said they could not handle the current volume…69 per cent have ‘unfollowed’ brands on social media, closed their accounts or cancelled subscriptions.*In these times, when the market is flooded with products and services, the most efficent way to engage customers is to offer them customized content. To achieve this, brands need to focus on observing the nuances of individual preferences.
