Archive for Simple Things

Act Small, Think big

March 15, 2009 at 8:46 pm · Filed under Disruptive Behaviour, Simple Things

If you act small and think big, you are too small to fail. You won’t need a bailout because your business makes sense each and every day. You won’t need a bailout because your flat organization (no matter how large it is) knows about problems long before they’re too big to deal with. – Seth Godin

What does this mean in practical application

Thinking big means expecting everybody to use their creativity every day towards improving customer experience and teamwork. Acting small means trying out minor adjustments to our processes, making minor changes workplace or looking for small time-waster situations and taking steps to improve.

Thinking big means that “zero” is a reasonable expectation for defects, accidents, equipment breakdowns and excess inventory. Acting small means noticing and correcting the smallest of the chronic flaws and deviations in processes before they become larger sporadic failures.

Thinking big means imagining innovative new product and services for the markets. Acting small means going to the field and interacting with customers actually using the product or service and humbly reflecting on these lessons learned, even when it means reversing cherished decisions on technology, marketing direction or milestones on product road maps.

Act small: produce in small lots
Think big: aim for 100% on-time delivery and customer satisfaction

Act small: go to personally check out the situation
Think big: believe that perfection is worth pursuing through tenacious follow-up

Act small: give cross-functional teams of 5 to 8 people a few days to make many small process improvements rapidly
Think big: set breakthrough goals before such kaizen events and expect double digit-improvements in safety, quality, lead-time, productivity, space and inventory

Act small: ask co-workers and subordinates for ideas
Think big: make the realization of their ideas the best part of your day

There are far more small businesses in the world than big businesses. The largest of organizations are but clusters of smaller, informal groups. We have outsized challenges today that require thinking sized to match them. We can think big, but act quickly no matter how small the good of that act may be. The collective impact of our many small actions has far more impact than the big thinking of the most powerful institutions.

Act small: do what you can do today.
Think big: dream of what you can do with all of your todays

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Remember whats important

March 14, 2009 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Sell it to me, Service Ace, Simple Things

When times are fraught and you attempt to do more to drive your business into the light, its pays to remember whats important. Keep things simple and focussed in 2 simple ways.

You’re only as good as how well you delivered on your customer’s last request. -  Great service day-to-day is what you need to be in the game. Standing above the fray when customers need you most – that’s winning it. B2B business depends on category buyer relationshiops based on performance management. Get the basics right, Quality, Delivery. Cost is a relative measure, understand your customers drivers. It is to reduce their BOM? Do they have cost KPIs. Know then and understand how you can respond. You may have to take a hit on revenue, but if you can maintain your margins you can also get increased share and/or  increased commitment.

Understand what’s strategically important vs. what’s nice to do. I’ve learned some things the hard way like your customers are always making trade-offs — and you’re only one trade off away from being replaced by a competitor. In times like these, you need to get to know your customer’s business almost better than they do. Use their definition for “strategically important,” not your own. Keep the bulk of your people focused on what your customers are doing – and what’s being done to them. Will changes such as consolidation, customer trade-down, a management shuffle or regulation force your customers to reassess their business? Probably. Can you evolve your relationship with your customers from transactional to consultative? Definitely. Prioritise the issues, question everything and ensure you have executive alignment.

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Innovation everyday

March 4, 2009 at 10:02 pm · Filed under Culture Vultures, Simple Things ·Tagged

Innovation should matter to you even if your job doesn’t involve strategy or product development.

Innovation is about solving old problems in new ways.

  • Human resources or information technology workers can think of new ways to help internal customers solve the problems they face.
  • Process-focused managers can develop ways to have their processes run better, faster, and cheaper.
  • Customer-focused employees can find new ways to provide positive experiences to customers.

The good news is that the principles that help growth-seeking innovators apply equally to internal innovation efforts. The following questions are a good starting point for any innovation effort:

    1. What is an important problem that the customer, or internal client, can’t adequately solve?
    2. What stops the customer, or internal client, from adequately solving the problem?
    3. How can you make it easier and simpler for the customer, or internal client, to address the problem?
    4. What is a low-cost way to test your idea?

      Innovation doesn’t have to land in the headlines to have impact. Everyday innovation can be critical to long-term business success.

      Article courtesy of Scott Anthony

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      2 Steps to a new image (free)

      February 27, 2009 at 10:17 pm · Filed under Brand New, Simple Things, Tools ·Tagged

       

      Save yourself a fortune and a load of marketing BS. Do it yourself and get some perfectly acceptable results.

      Step 1: Create a New Company Name.

      Get you free company name here>>

      Step 2: Create a New Corporate Logo.

      Get your free company logo here>>


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      No Left Turns!!

      February 23, 2009 at 6:08 pm · Filed under Simple Things

      UPS Avoids Left Turns to Save Fuel, Reduce Emissions and Improve Safety

      For 100 years, UPS employees have worked to find the most efficient solutions for delivering packages in a safe and timely manner. Careful route planning has been fundamental to the way UPS has always done business.

      One of the ways UPS achieves efficiencies is through careful study of the methods used to deliver packages. Time studies led UPS to discover that avoiding left-hand turns would save time, conserve fuel, reduce emissions and reduce the potential for accidents. UPS managers (who for years planned routes by physically driving each one and plotting on maps) began experimenting with their routes to see if right hand turns would increase efficiency. It worked. For decades, UPS has designed routes in a series of loops with as few left-hand turns as possible.

      Over the last few years, UPS has been rolling out some internally developed technology that automates many of the design principals that were manually performed in the past, among these is to minimize left-hand turns. Today, UPS managers use a combination of personal and historical experience coupled with specialized, sophisticated computer programs to design our delivery routes.

      In 2007, UPS route planning technology, which minimizes left hand turns:

      • shaved nearly 30 million miles off already streamlined delivery routes;
      • saved 3 million gallons of gas; and
      • reduced emissions by 32,000 metric tons of CO2 – the equivalent of removing 5,300 passenger cars off the road for an entire year.

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      No Left Turns

      February 13, 2009 at 5:23 pm · Filed under Simple Things ·Tagged

      UPS Avoids Left Turns to Save Fuel, Reduce Emissions and Improve Safety

      For 100 years, UPS employees have worked to find the most efficient solutions for delivering packages in a safe and timely manner. Careful route planning has been fundamental to the way UPS has always done business.

      One of the ways UPS achieves efficiencies is through careful study of the methods used to deliver packages. Time studies led UPS to discover that avoiding left-hand turns would save time, conserve fuel, reduce emissions and reduce the potential for accidents. UPS managers (who for years planned routes by physically driving each one and plotting on maps) began experimenting with their routes to see if right hand turns would increase efficiency. It worked. For decades, UPS has designed routes in a series of loops with as few left-hand turns as possible.

      Over the last few years, UPS has been rolling out some internally developed technology that automates many of the design principals that were manually performed in the past, among these is to minimize left-hand turns. Today, UPS managers use a combination of personal and historical experience coupled with specialized, sophisticated computer programs to design our delivery routes.

      In 2007, UPS route planning technology, which minimizes left hand turns:

      • shaved nearly 30 million miles off already streamlined delivery routes;
      • saved 3 million gallons of gas; and
      • reduced emissions by 32,000 metric tons of CO2 – the equivalent of removing 5,300 passenger cars off the road for an entire year.

      Simple idea or what!!

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