Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Strategy is not just about the moves you make it's about the signals you send" David Yoffe
David Yoffe gave a wonderful class on "Bitter Sweet competition" the story of Nutasweet and Equal and the fight for market share. A fight which eventually led to both companies exiting the space. Accomodating a competitor is sometimes a better strategy.
Rupert Murdoch and My Space .....Linked in. ...The value of 'Network effects"
A fascinating discussion regarding the social networking space and how linked in fits in.
My space did not feature but i asked David Yoffe how News corp had gone with my space.
The answer appeared to be that News may have missed its chance to make a large return on this investment.
"Do you measure something that's easy to measure or important to measure" Ashish Nanda
Ashish Nanda provided there lectures on leadership.
He is from the Law School, but teaches on the "leading professional services firms"
He gave everyone a chance to reflect on the personal leadership and insights into opportunities to be more valuable.
Some of his other quotes included
"What stays undone is the Elephant under the carpet"
"Feedback on the run is better than none"
We all have personal opportunities to use his learnings.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Authority is much more ambiguous in government"Paul Bremer
Ambassador Paul Bremer gave insightful comments on leadership in the context of his role as head of the Iraqi provisional authority.
His quote above, was in the context of business people not understanding politics. He stands out as a patriotic American despite recent comments by Bush and Rumsfield.
As an aside, he expects President Obama to be returned.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
What has Soy Sauce got to do with accounting?
The case of Kikkoman, the Japanese Soy Sauce company with one of the oldest brands in the world (1838); (presented by Rohit Deshpande) was extremely illuminating on many levels.
How could a Japanese company enter the USA market in the 1950's, shortly after the war? In addition, with a product of which 95 per cent of Americans were not consumers.
It was the first Japanese company to do this and by all accounts has been a role model for the Japanese car companies and others that have followed.
The case is well worth a read, but for me, with our new office in Auckland, it was incredibly useful to understand how Kikkoman worked out the USA market and subsequently learnt from the that market to reinvigorate their business in Japan.
I will be sending David Webb (who is heading up our NZ business), a full page of notes on this.
(THE Name Kikkoman roughly means the Tortoise that lives 10,000 years)
How could a Japanese company enter the USA market in the 1950's, shortly after the war? In addition, with a product of which 95 per cent of Americans were not consumers.
It was the first Japanese company to do this and by all accounts has been a role model for the Japanese car companies and others that have followed.
The case is well worth a read, but for me, with our new office in Auckland, it was incredibly useful to understand how Kikkoman worked out the USA market and subsequently learnt from the that market to reinvigorate their business in Japan.
I will be sending David Webb (who is heading up our NZ business), a full page of notes on this.
(THE Name Kikkoman roughly means the Tortoise that lives 10,000 years)
Why does Nigeria Matter and why would they teach it at Harvard?
One could be excused for asking why Harvard would teach about Nigeria.
Very interesting facts, including that in 10 years they have gone from 7oo,ooo cell phones to 110 million, in a population of 150 million!
The fact that most of the population does not have power, but the government run power industry is about to be privatised.
The most compelling part of the case for me was the fact that Nations such as Nigeria that have massive oil revenue, can become too dependant on that revenue, their currency can rise, damagong most other exports and local industry, leaving the country with what's called the Dutch Disease" The same thing happenned to Holland with the North Sea oil in the 80's .
One can only think that Australia is at risk now with massive iron ore and coal exports and already a high dollar with many industries suffering, such as tourism.
Very interesting facts, including that in 10 years they have gone from 7oo,ooo cell phones to 110 million, in a population of 150 million!
The fact that most of the population does not have power, but the government run power industry is about to be privatised.
The most compelling part of the case for me was the fact that Nations such as Nigeria that have massive oil revenue, can become too dependant on that revenue, their currency can rise, damagong most other exports and local industry, leaving the country with what's called the Dutch Disease" The same thing happenned to Holland with the North Sea oil in the 80's .
One can only think that Australia is at risk now with massive iron ore and coal exports and already a high dollar with many industries suffering, such as tourism.
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