INFORMATION

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INFORMATION
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INFORMATION

• Offer employees more equitable rewards
• Make a commitment to information technology ...
  and support it
• Be open to outside innovation
• Become environmentally concerned and aware
• Become ethically concerned and aware
• Become globally, rather than nationally, focused
• Make a commitment to producing quality goods and
  services

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INFORMATION

• Turn away from debt and toward equity financing
• Finding new sources of financing
• Taking an active role in the training and
  education of employees
• Becoming more flexible in dealing with employees
• Recruit or develop an eclectic management team
• Offer employees more of a role in decision making
• Streamline business structures

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Trends in the Work Force

• Growth in African-American, Hispanic,
  Asian-Americans
• By 2001, two-thirds of all new workers were
  female
• Members of the Baby Bust generation not as
  willing to work slowly up the ladder

• Young people no longer view workaholism as
  enviable
• Baby Boomers are looking for more balance between
  work and home
• Old Boomers becoming more entrepreneurial
• Todays middle managers are the most likely to
  suffer from downsizing

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Benefit from Business Trends(article by
Bussing-Burks)

• Unemployment Insurance Claims start rising 1
  year before recession declines eight weeks
  before recovery
• Durable Goods Orders signal upcoming economic
  activity
• Building Permits capture all home building
  activity
• M2 Money Supply measures liquidity if M2
  falls, money is less easy to get.

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Competitive Analysis Flaws and Managerial Actions
(6)

• Flaws
• 1. Misjudging industry boundaries

• Executive Actions
• Change view of the competition by focusing on
  competitors intent seeing the industry from the
  entrants eye examining the reason for an
  entrants failure and performing an autopsy on
  failing competitors.

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Competitive Analysis Flaws and Managerial Actions
(6)

• Flaws
• 2. Poor identification of the competition
• 3. Overemphasis on competitors visible
  competence
• 4. Overemphasis on where, not how

• Executive Actions
• 2. Study competitors response pattern and blind
  spots
• Survey customers and suppliers
• Focus on competitors capabilities, not only
  form
• 3. Study the competitors response patterns
• Analyze rivals invisible functions
• 4. Study competitors strategic intent
• See the industry from the competitors eyes

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Competitive Analysis Flaws and Managerial Actions
(6)

• Flaws
• 5. Faulty assumptions about the competitor

• Executive Actions
• Transform the cliché that competition is good
  into a living reality
• Study competitors actions and response patterns
• Ensure representation of different groups in the
  competitive analysis process
• Teach your employees about your competition
• Validate your assumptions by discussing them with
  suppliers and customers

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Competitive Analysis Flaws and Managerial Actions
(6)

• Flaws
• 6. Paralysis of analysis

• Executive Actions
• Pay attention to the staffing, organization, and
  mission of the competitive analysis unit
• Integrate competitive analysis with managerial
  decision-making process
• Use your own invisible functions

10
Change Management Strategies Vary with the Sales
Life Cycle
Sales Strategy
Marketing Strategy
General Business Strategy
Phase 1
All Business is Good
1 Product 1 Market
Survival Selling
Start-Up
Obsolescence Symptoms that Lead to Change
Management Initiatives 1. Insufficient customer
coverage 2. Little Segmentation 3. Long-term
relationship development overshadowed
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Change Management Strategies Vary with the Sales
Life Cycle
Sales Strategy
Marketing Strategy
General Business Strategy
Phase 2
More Business is Good
1 Product 1 Big Market
Volume Selling
Volume Growth
Obsolescence Symptoms that Lead to Change
Management Initiatives 1. Failure to support
multi-product strategy 2. Imitation 3. Little
Segmentation 3. Little thought to customer
retention
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Change Management Strategies Vary with the Sales
Life Cycle
Sales Strategy
Marketing Strategy
General Business Strategy
Phase 3
What Business is Good?
Old/New Products Many Markets
Sell Volume to Hold Share
Market Share
Obsolescence Symptoms that Lead to Change
Management Initiatives 1. Price erosion 2.
Superior competitive offerings 3. Lower
competitive prices 3. Short-term thinking
dominates
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Change Management Strategies Vary with the Sales
Life Cycle
Sales Strategy
Marketing Strategy
General Business Strategy
Phase 4
Redefine Customers Segment Selling
Optimize Sales to Get Best Returns
Certain Business is Good
Optimization
Obsolescence Symptoms that Lead to Change
Management Initiatives 1. Too many dissimilar
products/customers 2. Search for value 3.
Value-added solutions
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Some Companies Cut Cost Too Far

• Trimming the fat
• Becoming lean
• Fit and ready to compete
• YOU CANT SHRINK TO GREATNESS
• Downsizing Results
• Decimated sales staffs
• New Product ideas languish
• Risk taking declines
• Too much expense control

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Some Companies Cut Cost Too Far

• YOU CANT SAVE YOUR WAY TO PROSPERITY
• Profit percentages increased
• Revenues did not
• Companies are re-hiring fired workers
• Downsizing has also affected training

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Infoliteracy

• If a computer is a tool, the tool users job is
  to decide how to use it.
• What information do I need for my job? From
  whom? In what form? When?
• What information do I owe? To whom? In what
  form? When?
• How much time is needed to create tool makers?

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Infoliteracy

• The really important information? You cant get
  it from your information system.
• Your information system gives you inside
  information
• There are no results inside a business
• Inside a business there are no profit centers -
  just cost centers
• Profit only comes from the outside

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Infoliteracy

• We cannot focus on what happened
• The most important information is not about
  customers, but non-customers
• Are we learning more and more about less and less?

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How to Rig a Poll(Article by Barnes)

• SELECTION REPORTING OF RESULTS
• TOOLS TO CREATE BIASED RESPONSES
• QUESTION PHRASING

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Assessing Information

• Who collected it?
• What was collected?
• How was it collected?
• When was it collected?
• Where was it collected?
• In what form was it collected?

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Numbers Game

• Estimates of battered wives 2-4 million
• Estimates of homelessness 223,000 - 7 million
• 150,000 women die of anorexia, annually
  (reported)
• Actually, 150,000 cases, annually (few fatal)
• 50,000 children abducted, annually reported
• Actually, 5,000 abducted, annually
• 22 of Americans have doubts about the holocaust
  (reported)
• Actually, 1 have doubts

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Press Hounds Howl at Econ 101(Morgenson article)

• most people who cover politics know
  little/nothing about economics and business
• liberal bias??? - may play a role
• lack of understanding is more important

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Press Hounds Howl at Econ 101(Morgenson article)

• Whether you call it supply side or voodoo
  economics, theres still a fallacy at the core of
  Forbes flat tax argument the notion that
  taxes have anything to do with entrepreneurship
  and real wealth creation.
• The biggest winners under the Forbes tax plan
  - and most other flat-tax systems - would be
  people who have the most money.
• I dont want to understand the economics of it.
  I just want to understand the politics of it.

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Confederacy of Dunces(Samuelson article)

• junk journalism
• no thought of truthfulness
• does not seek balance
• isolated stories are anecdotal.and irrelevant
• explanations for shoddy journalism
• sensationalism
• ideology anti-profit motive
• ignorance

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When Journalism Stood for Something
(Smith article)

• Newspapers - to furnish a check upon government
  which no constitution has ever been able to
  provide
• Today - Focus groups
• people have little time
• people do not want to be politically or
  intellectually challenged

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When Journalism Stood for Something
(Smith article)

• A paper unwilling to offend readers is unlikely
  to engage them
• Keep the story and throw out the advertising
• Newspapers are by their essence defamatory,
  especially when exposing political corruption
• - Col. Robert R. McCormick
• Publisher/Editor

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When Journalism Stood for Something
(Smith article)

• We go our own way,
• At our own time,
• In our own manner,
• In the company of our choosing,
• Knowing as we do that
• Vindication will be sure to follow.
• - Col. Robert R. McCormick
• Publisher/Editor