Business can mirror life in ways that are not immediately apparent. When listening to great speakers of any field, for instance, a business perspective may emerge, sometimes without the speaker’s intention. Such moments present unique opportunities to refresh our thinking around important topics, diverging from the regular frameworks we usually get exposed to. Each...
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Strategy
And you thought those 18 minutes were not about business
When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
There is a great deal of discussion lately in Greece about the need to reduce labor costs (i.e., salaries) in the private sector in order to increase Greece’s competitiveness. The theory is that by reducing their labor costs Greek companies will be able to deliver cheaper products and services, thus become more competitive, increase...
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Is feta cheese killing my margins?
Probably not – but its price may be. Following up on my previous post on costs, it may be worthwhile to focus on Greece and the specific challenges faced by local companies. With 73 Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) per 1000 inhabitants, far exceeding the European Union norm, Greece has a dominant SME segment . This...
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Understand your costs – at all costs
“I can make more generals, but horses cost money” – Abraham Lincoln Revenues have always dominated the interest of the business community. Costs, on the other side, are reported and monitored, but in most cases they’re not as well understood. Functional Costing There are many ways to look at a company’s costs; perhaps the...
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The Intersection of Disciplines
The next wave of value creation will increasingly occur at the intersection of disciplines. Such convergence is the foundation of many “new” industries – the child of a marriage of equals. A classic example is in the area of technology, where IT and telecommunications have joined forces to form the “ICT” domain. Another flourishing...
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Premium Experience
When faced with a problem, we try to simplify our approach by eliminating the noise from the core of the matter. In business, customer satisfaction is a critical challenge, one that is clouded by complications and unknowns. As we analyze, prioritize and identify critical success factors, we often tend to focus on a single...
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In search of a ‘messiah’
Individuals can make a huge difference. Coco Chanel is credited with single-handedly (albeit accidentally) turning sun tanning from a sign of poverty into a global fashion trend when in a 1923 cruise from Paris to Cannes she stepped off the Duke of Wellington’s yacht with a startling suntan. In a less haphazard turn of...
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Authority, and it’s limit
Reason, that is. Back in ancient times, the classical period arose when the authority of god was displaced by reason. Today, we are lucky to have almost gotten rid of the first, in the context of business at least. However, the very problem of authority versus reason is still there, taking various forms to...
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The middle of the road
Sometimes there’s no “best of both worlds”. The “middle of the road” solution is not adequate, may not even make sense. Sometimes you just have to choose one or the other. Some choices only make sense if you fully embrace them. But it’s tempting to try to build consensus. To avoid taking a stance....
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Strategy is the ability to say No
If you have a strategy then there must be some things that are not part of it. Unless of course everything is part of it, in which case it’s not much of a strategy, is it? Sid Meier famously defined a game as “a series of interesting choices”. In a world of infinite possibilities...
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