Growth or ROIC or Both ?

Often SME companies are caught in the 'growth freeze' zone. For example, a 500 head count company will struggle to hit the next big target of 1000 people. They have to sustain as well grow as well create value for customers as well produce profits for the stakeholders. Big ask!! When you find time, read what Bin Jiang and Timothy Koller of Mckinsey got to say on growth pangs.


Here is the summary of the Mckinsey Article :

'Value-minded executives know that although growth is good, returns on invested capital (ROIC) can be an equally—or still more—important indicator of value creation.1 Yet even executives at the best companies often wrestle with strategic decisions in order to reach the right balance between growth and returns. We repeatedly come across executives whose companies earn high returns on capital but who are unwilling to let those returns decline to encourage faster growth. Conversely, we see executives at companies with low returns working to promote growth instead of improving their ROIC.'

~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Who's on the bus?

Top management guru and best-selling author Jim Collins quips : "If the bus is your company, and getting the right people is crucial to success — more important, even, than your strategy... and what do you do if you've got the wrong people on the bus? Or the right people doing the wrong things?"

I think that there are times when your most revered and most performing employee may have lost the golden touch or the zest. An aggressive Sales Eagle who wins account at will might become one average sales manager on promotion. A multi-faceted executive could get jaded if micromanaged to put all the eggs in one basket. And employees who thrive in a creative set-ups may choke when you tell them that rules and processes are sancrosant, which is the case in a big company.

How will you match great resources to right jobs?

Would these questions help in every performance appraisal ?? : What is the resource good at? What is the resource not good at? What does the resource love about his/her job? What does he/she hate about his/her job?

Now match your judgements with his or her observations on the same set of questions :What are you good at? What are you not good at? What do you love about your job? What do you really dislike about it?

~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Business minus YOU is delegation

Micromanagement is the enemy of Delegation. Your business or department or project should run without you. That is the power of delegation.

Brian Blomgren, owner of business coaching and training firm ActionCOACH rightly points out : "The first person to convince that you can have a business that works without you is yourself. If you do not have a vision of what that looks like, then how can you expect someone else to have that vision for you?"

Read Business Week's 'Smart Answers' Section :
"I have a small company and want it to grow, but have no experience trusting employees to take care of the details I now look after myself. How do I start delegating tasks once I start hiring a larger staff?" —K.G., Seattle

~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Forrester on B2B Blogging

A recently published study from Forrester Research raises a new question: Are businesses of any size benefiting from blogging?

A new study by Forrester Research reviewed 90 blogs run by business-to-business companies in the Fortune 500, and surveyed about twice that many B2B marketers. Like most businesses, these companies want to use the Internet to reach their customers. But because B2B companies are selling to people who follow their products professionally and not for pleasure, they face a greater challenge than companies that sell primarily to consumers.

Forrester doesn’t recommend that businesses give up on blogging, however. Instead, it suggests that they spice the blogs up.

I think companies should move away from drab 'this is me' messages to 'customer insight' messages, presented in an absorbing way. Probably get a blogger and not just a 'press release' writer to do this. Does your marketing write your company blog?

Barack Obama, the new CEO

Barack Obama is the presidential contender that corporate recruiters say they would most likely recruit as CEO of their organizations.

In a recent Jobfox online poll of 573 recruiters, nearly half (49.6 percent) said Obama was likely the best CEO material for their organizations — politics aside — compared to Hilary Rodham Clinton, with 32.8 percent of the vote, and John McCain, with 17.6 percent of the vote.

Hmmm... interesting!! This made me think on another tangent - how far can recruiters keep emotional aspects out of employee selection in day-to-day life? Do they get carried away with popular opinions?

Would you rehire him?

Take a look at these smart questions used by reference checkers. I picked these up from Business Pundit.

1. Were you asked to be a reference by (candidate name)?

2. What did he learn during his time with your company?

3. If you could give him a single career suggestion, what would it be?

4. What circumstances frustrate him the most?

5. How well does he manage pressure, stress, or crises?

6. (If reference managed the client) How did the candidate respond to your management style?

7. Would you rehire him?

8. Can you refer me to someone he didn’t get along with?

I personally believe that answers lie in your questions. Sharper the questions, better and closer are the answers !!

~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

75% Talk & 25% Songs

Recently I got a chance to listen to the entire plethora of FM Stations in Chennai during a long drive. It's unbelievable. Except for a few frills and noise elements, all sounded the same. Same formula. Same themes. Same jokes and satire.

Did a bit of research and found out that currently the ratio of talk to music playing time is 70:30 in most of these channels. This is excluding the ad time.

Probably some newbie should enter in and turn things around its head. Say do 75% talk and 25% songs. At 3:1 ratio! This might take listening and conversing to a different level and hence 'value' differentiation happen.

Any takers for a daring risk like this ?? After all a creative idea is something that scares everything out of you. And it produces an eerie feel of a kick-boxer's pinching punch in the abdomen. This eerie feel transforms into crazy delight once you see the buy in and positive results.

~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in