JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

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With risk comes reward. Collaborate at a high level, increase reward. There is a hierarchy of partnerships worth considering, from transaction based partnerships, shared learning, customer interactions through service innovation, and, finally, end-to-end collaboration (Tyagi, 131). Collaborations can focus on increasing market position, reducing costs, increasing responsiveness, growth and reducing time to market (Tyagi, 131-131).

Why bother? OK, increased profits are one reason. They're a given. In this marketplace, however, they're not enough. A brutal word might be more apt: survival. Collaborate. Survive.

Tisch talks about collaborating to help lower income potential employees to succeed as hotel workers by applying Workforce Investment Board technologies during the welfare to work process a decade ago. It's still working for him (Tisch, 21). This was a pretty high level rish for him, as he was making investments in up-grading his hotels to four-stars (five-stars were too expensive and too risky. Four star hotels have the ambience of five but without, maybe, a quarter of the staff.) The federal/company collaboration worked. He suggested it to other hotels nation-wide.

Tisch, Jonathan M. and Karl Weber. Power of We. Succeeding Through Partnerships. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2004. 

Tyagi, Rajesh K. and Praveen Gupta. A Complete and Balanced Service Scorecard. Creating Value Through Sustained Performance Improvement. Pearson Education Inc. as FT Press. 2008.

Posted by jackmixner at 01:24 PM | Permalink

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Win the race. Make the whole team famous - and more valuable. Lose team. Re-build. That was the process facing Lance Armstrong after his first win in the Tour de France. That, and the press's reaction to his win. They claimed he had cheated by using drugs to win his victory. Wasn't so, but what to do? New team? Yes. New PR? Yes. Same Lance.

The new team was necessary because all the good folks retreated to other teams. They got paid more, after all. You can't blame them. The PR? That was necessary because no one understood how Lance had won. When they couldn't see or understand his training regime, they balked (Wilcockson, 282) and cried "Foul!" Same Lance. Yes, again. After his bout with cancer, Armstrong came back fifteen pounds lighter. That allowed him to attack the hills better. Less weight, less to drag up the biggest mountains. His legs were the same, capable of long courses.

Armstrong utilized two new stragies. They were pretty obvious, but no one else was using them effectively: training and cadence. He rode all the legs of the next Tour all by himself, attacking them over and over (think about: he was attacking thirty mile hills over and over again - that's training) again until he understood how to win on them. Some of it was cadence: pedal in a lower gear, increase the number of revolutions, be more efficient (Wilcockson, 262) while, at the same time, attack going down the steepest slopes (Wilcockson, 122). All while training more than all the other pros.

So, you're trying to win at your market for a second time. Look at your team. Practice more on the hard parts (the hills) and the easy parts (the down hills). Change the cadence (speed things up - or slow them down). Might work for you.

Wilcockson, John. Lance. The Making of the World's Greatest Champion. Da Capo Press. 2009.

Posted by jackmixner at 11:33 AM | Permalink

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Long term strategy takes a back seat, usually, to profits next quarter. That's the illusion, maybe even the facts. There are contrary examples worth remembering, however.

American pharma companies which wanted to sell more in Japan after WW II gave away tuberculosis medicine.  River-blindedness in Africa was solved the same way. They build recognition in a new market with the hope that that recognition would turn into profits down the way. It's happening again.

Traditionally, pharma companies have two methods: fund hugely expensive research and development operations and profit on the few drugs that make it through the process, or, as in public health initiatives, subsidize the distribution of drugs into a population unable to fund the pharmaceutical purchase itself. Both can make sense. There is another way.

Martin tells of a researcher who did it a new way that was just as effective (Martin, 109). The researcher examined drugs - old ones - that were no longer manufactured because they weren't profitable. She found new uses for the old drugs, got them approved, and took them to market in poorer countries. She built the model before she found the drug or the target market. Old drug, new market, new manufacturer. With a little bit of thought, the process may have applications in other applications, as well, maybe even in your industry.

Martin, Roger. The Opposable Mind. How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking. Harvard Business School Press. 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 10:18 AM | Permalink

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Strategic "success can only be achieved in collaborations where all partners understand the fundamental role of creativity in the strategic plan. Business leaders who view design as little more that an aesthetic "fix" for dull and naive business models might temporarily look good in the media, but their moments in the spotlight are brief. It takes a day to create a fascinating "study," but years to create a new strategic business (Esslinger, 33)."

Esslinger's been involved in design at Apple (he owns frog design who advised on the Macintosh), designed the logo for Microsoft's Windows, made ship designs for Disney, and on and on.

He talks about the strategy of design. It's not just making things look good. It's about the whole company. Want a new airplane seat to save space and weight? Might want to look at the whole design of the interior of the airplane, and, while you're at it, the waiting area, the ticket taking area, and, oh yeah, the website. It's not a little thing. It's a big thing that effects the bottom line, big time.

Esslinger, Hartmut. A Fine Line. How design strategies are shaping the future of business. Jossey-Bass. 2009.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:08 AM | Permalink