Anthems to win with

I just watched the Monaco Grand Prix on TV.  This was followed by the trophy ceremony and the various national anthems.  To end an event as a winner the Spanish National anthem is pretty up beat.  Alonso was smiling through it as he should.  Then came the UK national anthem, o-h  d-e-a-r. 

Your Majesty, if you do happen to read my blog, please consider a change of the national anthem or at least a variation for sporting events.

Maybe the Kaiser Chiefs could write a national anthem for us.  They have a knack for writing good anthems.

Front to back

In preparation for the ski trip to Whistler this year, Alison and I joined the gym and put together a strict weekly routine.  Surprisingly we stuck to it and as a result we came back from Whistler without the usual pains…apart from the result of a face plant I experienced during my snowboarding lesson.

Luckily I was wearing a helmet, goggles (so easy to type google there) and a small amount of concentration.  I caught the wrong edge of my board and SPLAT!  Face planting the snow I fell onto my hand which impacted my chest resulting in an inability to breath for a while and a severe pain. 

At first I thought I had broken something, but after a few days of complaining, I was told I had bruised my ribs.  Breathing was a tough task at first, but that eased up, then sneezing became a BIGdeal, but soon that eased up and surely enough last-week all evidence to the injury had disappeared.

 So this weekend, I figured I would get back in the gym and continue on my quest for fitness, but first, I thought I’d cut the grass and wash the car, head off to the gym then grab a few holes with Alex.  BIG MISTAKE!  Whilst washing the car, OUCH MY BACK!  something went wrong.

I was in pain, so much pain.  There goes my plans for the rest for the day.  well that’s what I thought, Alex however had other plans.  A conspiracy maybe, but Alison nursed me by strapping a ‘heat pad’ to my back and Alex got the clubs into the car.  I had no choice.

It has to be said, that playing golf in a gingerly fashion improved my game.  It didn’t improve that much as Alex, once again, beat me.  In fact he came in with an impressive 2 over par!

This weekend, I promise, the gym will see me for a couple of hours.

Customer Surveys

I’ve just attended a seminar by Professor Clayton Christensen.  He has just published his third book entitled Seeing What’s Next.  His content was extremely thought provoking and enjoyable to to listen to.  I have his book and will be diving into this very soon.

He described how the pioneers of the Technology industry disappeared through bad management, lack of strategy and total short sightedness. 

He used Digital Equipment Corp as a good example.  Briefly, DEC were pioneers and innovated their products based on what their customers wanted.  They provided a premium platform with a premium price and their customers paid for it because it was what they wanted.  It did the job.

When the personal computer entered the market DEC’s customers had no need for this, although cheaper, it was less powerful and at first less functional.  Apple for example sold their early products as toys not business productivity tools (yes Apple Computers are a Personal Computer).  Now, because DEC’s customers were not interested in the personal computer, DEC continued to innovate their minis and stayed away from the PC business.  The rest is history.

The PC was a disruptive technology.  Professor Christensen defines a disruptive technology as one that simple and low cost that gains market share rapidly.  It is not a technology that is new that changes the path of existing technologies. 

The PC, whilst at the time less functional, was affordable and provided services for the masses; word processing and spreadsheets and therefore gained market share not by competing in the same segment but by exposing an existing market that was not seen as an opportunity by the DEC and WANGs of the era. 

IBM however, were much smarter… for a while, hence the reason they are still around today.  IBM created new ‘child’ businesses independent from the existing that eventually killed off the ‘parent’.  Much like the framework in the product life-cycle, constantly evolving products and services before the existing mature products and services went into decline. 

IBM then slipped up for a while and began to listen to the management consultants at the time and began to outsource the components to third party companies in a bid to capitalise on the value added service.  Those components were the processor and operations systems and those third parties were Intel and Microsoft!  IBM simply fed their suppliers success and eventually killed off their business. 

The same happened with Compaq and Flextronics.  Flextronics started out making small component chips for Compaq.  As Wall Street began demanding increased profits from Compaq, cost cutting exercises went in to reduce cost and get rid of assets .   Flextronics moved fast and with analyst advice Compaq handed over the manufacturing of the motherboards, the supply chain and eventually the design of the PC. 

Soon Flextronics revenues grew whilst Compaq revenue stay static but managed to make profits.  Flextronics then approached Best Buy and simply stated the obvious, why stock the Compaq badge when we can put any badge on the same technology for less cost?

Many more examples across other industries were explained and with this you can start to get a picture of what’s next.  Toyota did it to the big US auto manufacturers and more recently Dell, the darling of the early noughties, a success story I studied in my MBA are now likely to be another casualty. 

So where do companies innovate to survive or succeed?  The message was clear, 

Understanding the job will provide the key to understanding the customer. Don’t survey the customer. For example, the car is not right for the job, we simply buy it buy it because it helps to do a job. Some of us need cars\vans that are an office, an entertainment system, etc. 

Where do we compromise or workaround with current tools/products? This is where the opportunity is!

I bought a new putter at last!  Be afriad Alex…. be very afriad! 

Lock Out

I managed to pull off yet another surprise on my good friends Steve and Cheryl.  Turning up unexpected at their door in Orlando.  One day, I expect they’ll pretend they are out and the surprise will back fire, but for now, this is the third year in a row that I’ve manged to do this. You’d think by now, they will remember the dates as this is a regular trip for me.

 Steve and Cheryl, are now living and working in Florida after following their dream three years ago and leaving London. They have decided to start a new business.  Steve’s profession was as a bulder and due to his weak back, he’s packed that in and re-trained as a locksmith.  He now has a business called Bernie’s Lock-Out and performs a service to the locals in Orlando, opening their homes and cars. 

I spent the afternoon with Steve as he made a visit to a residential property to re-key a couple of locks.  An hour later and a satisifed customer later, we returned to his house and he took me through breaking into his house and car.  I managed to create a new key for his van from a complex set of algorithms and opened the front door of his house in under 60 seconds.  Steve’s enthusiasm is encouraging and enjoying what he’s doing.

I can see a good future ahead for “Bernie’s Lock-out” as the tourist season peaks in the summer and, like myself a few years ago, holiday makers loosing keys to rental cars. 

He is working on the advertising now, but I’m sure he’ll get that right and the calls will flood in.   Keep following the dream!

Why so early?

It is 04:45 in the morning and I’ve got a plane to catch. Why on earth have I decided to start a blog? Certainly something I’ve been meaning to do for sometime, but to actually do this at such a strange hour on the Sunday morning is something I will spend the rest of the day congratulating myself on!

Anyway, welcome, I’m off to Florida for a few days and will be updating this along the way.