For most businesses times are very tough and many of their management are entering an unknown and uncertain world. When this happens, management often call in the consultants. This can be for many reason – management need options, they don’t really know what to do and need help, or in some circumstances are looking for a “fall guy” if things dont improve. While consultants do have a place in helping management, they are not there to replace them. So what is the role of consultants during an economic downturn?
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In today’s tough business environment, access to future capital is not as easy as it used to be. Therefore all businesses need to focus on cash flow management as cash flow is the live blood of a business. Therefore i thought i would share with you some tips that i read about in an article by Melissa Wilkinson in April’s Management Today magazine. These tips are not only timely, but pertinent to all companies – espcially those that are doing it a little tough.
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I recently heard about a manager who called all his staff in for a meeting about the future of his part of the business. As he went through the presentation, he talked about a new, more efficient structure. The problem was, the new structure left off a bunch of existing people. These existing people immediately asked “where am i”. To their surprise, they were told that their roles where no longer needed and the manager wasnt sure if they would have a job after 30 June. Now this doesnt appear to be the smartest approach to the problem of how to tell someone they dont have a job any more. What is the impact of this approach and how could that manager have handled it better?
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I have just stumbled upon an interesting blog posting from Dublin, Ireland. In the posting by Jason Roe, he claims that he found a bug in the Ryan Air site that displayed a zero price for an airfare after the user completed a couple of less than obvious actions. While bugs on websites are nothing new, it was the response by people within Ryan Air (including someone within the PR team) that makes his a fascinating case study on how not to deal with blogger.
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You just have to turn on the TV for one minute in any country to hear just how bad the economic situation is. The reports flood in from around the world about how business is contracting, unemployment is rising, consumers are no longer spending and companies are focusing on cost containment rather than revenue growth. However, it is in times like this, that companies should be looking to acquire new businesses – they are now trading at reasonable levels and many of them are looking to be acquired. So why don’t managers take this contrarian approach?
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Imagine my surprise when i received a google alert today that i had been mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). As i had not been interviewed by the SMH recently, it was then with enthusiasm and a little curiosity that i opened the online article. Had someone decided to write about our new business venture, Classified Ad Ventures or perhaps one our investments – ArtsHub, Sports Passion, or Homethinking in the US. Or perhaps they had picked up on some of the articles about the REA Group / realestate.com.au that we had been writing over on Property Portal Watch. Thefore imagine my surprise when it was none of these.
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Businesses around the world are going through tough times as the world’s economy continues to struggle. In these tough times, business have to make tough decisions – often letting go of key people. In making these decisions, it is important that the people in the business understand why the decision is being made, in particular what events have led to that decision. However, this openness and transparency is often very difficult for management. Therefore, the result is that businesses become plagued by fear and rumour, thus leading to a slowdown in efficiency and effectiveness and therefore more layoff. How can management break this spiral?
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The following artice was recently published by Alaine Fontaine on his blog. I found it an interesting article and thought i would share it with you.
A couple of days ago, after a tough day, I had a small discussion with one of my developers at work. I asked him to show me some document on his PC, and it took an awful long time for him to open it up because he mapped a network share on his private laptop he brought to work, and his laptop somehow stopped responding. My reaction was to say that this was an unacceptable loss of time and that I would think about no longer allowing people to bring their own gear to work.
Whilst I was driving home, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this was an emotional decision and that it felt wrong. Now that I took some time to think it over, I am sure that this is not what I will do in the future, but rather the opposite! I will encourage people to bring their own stuff to work, and even more than that…
In short, this concept is called BYOC – Bring Your Own Computer, and this is not something I invented. It is currently actively applied by several big companies, like Citrix, and Microsoft, in a way that I consider as very smart.
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December 31st, 2008
Simon
In the first part of this series i looked at some of the more hard core challenges i am facing in building a new business. In this entry i want to explore some other softer lessons being learned as we launch our new business. These lessons cover selection of people, the culture we want to create, our approach to working and most importantly having fun.
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December 28th, 2008
Simon
Over the last 3 months we have been setting up a new business called Classified Ad Ventures (CAV). As we set up this business, we are learning and re-learning what it takes to start a new business and I thought i would share some of these lessons with you.
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