Outside in is perhaps the best pair of words to express that you are looking at something from a different perspective. It is a very short way of suggesting that the view is coming from a different direction. The words are being used currently in a number of different and interesting ways.
Scalable was a word introduced in the Information Technology world but it raises some interesting questions in applying it in other contexts.
In IT it is a popular buzzword that refers to how well a hardware or software system can adapt to increased demands. For example, a scalable network system would be one that can start with just a few nodes but can easily expand to thousands of nodes. Scalability can be a very important feature because it means that you can invest in a system with confidence you won’t outgrow it.
Now we see it applied more generally to a company that many customers would rate very highly for customer service. Toyota Failure Proves Quality Isn’t Scalable.
A small operation can bootstrap itself into a medium or even a reasonably large company, via either organic growth or acquisition, and still maintain the quality which was the basis of its initial success.
At some point, though, whether you’re talking an automaker or a technology firm, size breeds insularity, which in turn fosters risk aversion. I haven’t even mentioned the corner-cutting mentality which occurs when making numbers becomes a (the only?) priority.
The author, Alexander Wolfe, points out that in the more open world created by the Internet, the quality stakes are very much higher.
Toyota might not have so fortunate a fate, and thus a swifter fall, because we now live in Internet time, where seismic shifts occur in timeframes too tiny for rational thought to stop that Twitter/Facebook/Cable TV train from running the business off the metaphorical track.
I believe the author identifies exactly why this problem occurs.
It’s true that the scalability doesn’t seem to be a limiting factor for manufacturing, per se. It’s not the manufacturing which is at fault in the Toyota crisis. It’s a management failure brought on by an inherent inability of human beings to scale up, beyond a certain point, the social interactions which grease the wheels of a smoothly running society. (And, in a very real sense, a company is a society writ smaller.)
The real reasons for the Toyota problems have yet to be pinned down, however a clear message is that Toyota was not willing to accept that customer satisfaction is determined by the customer. Undoubtedly the final bill for Toyota will be very much greater than if they had accepted that if a single customer is dissatisfied, you have to make it right. Of course there is a very small proportion of the population that are never satisfied. However unless you do as much for them as most people would accept is right and fair, then you may well be storing up problems for yourself.
Insularity is not an acceptable or justifiable company trait. There must be full two-way communication that both parties find acceptable. Setting that up and providing adequate resources for that is not somehting that is easily scaleable. However the hoped-for economies by providing less than satisfying customer service are completely outweighed by the market penalties when customers feel ignored.
On a personal note, I have been a most satisfied customer of Toyota for many years and will gladly pass on the word to friends and acquaintances. However my voice and the voices of other satisfied customers are lost in the huge noise created by those who it would appear have reasons to claim that Toyota just did not listen.
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Although you might assume we are about to discuss that new Ford Focus automobile, that is the resultant of what we really want to talk about.
The word focus is what Peter Drucker felt so strongly about that he emphasized it three times: focus, focus, focus. Although it is clearly essential advice for small and mid-sized companies, it is equally applicable in mega corporations too.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, that is what Ford’s Renaissance Man is now pushing.
Alan Mulally, an engineer from Boeing, arrived three-and-a-half years ago when Ford seemed on death’s door. It suffered a $12.6 billion loss in 2006, when industry-wide car sales were strong. But in 2009, Ford became the only U.S. car company to avoid bankruptcy, and posted a $2.7 billion profit. After plunging below $2 a share a year ago the company’s stock is now bumping $12.
“Improve Focus, Simplify Operations,” is for Mr. Mulally a sacred mantra. Soon after his arrival Ford began shedding brands – Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin among them – that the company couldn’t afford to support. Volvo will be next to go. Meanwhile, the core Ford brand got an investment infusion to replace aging cars and revive a model lineup that had been heavily tilted toward gas-guzzling trucks.
In the process, Ford cut its number of global platforms, or chassis, to eight from more than 20, and the number of nameplates to 25 from 97. Each platform and model involves hundreds of millions of dollars of engineering costs, which translated to billions of losses when Ford couldn’t sell enough of each model.
Product-development chief Derrick Kuzak is methodically implementing the “One Ford” strategy of developing cars in a single region (say Europe, or North America) and selling them globally, instead of developing slightly different cars in each region at enormous extra cost. The first of these, the subcompact Fiesta, was engineered in Europe and will arrive in the United States this summer. In 2011, we will see a new version of a slightly larger car, the compact Focus, also engineered in Europe and designed as a global car from the start.
It’s all another triumph for that KISS principle. As Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
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Most posts on this blog derive from incidents and events that come up on my radar screen. I was delighted to see that one of my online friends, Rand Fishkin, was Bringing SEO to Small Business in Scotland.
I spent a day with small business owners in Glasgow, Scotland teaching the basics of online marketing and SEO. It was a remarkable experience to be faced with such a different crowd than what I’m used to. As a comparison, the week prior, I’d been in Mountain View presenting to the Silicon Valley Search Engine Roundtable, comprised of heads of SEO and marketing directors from Fortune 500 companies – all very savvy operators.
This was all in support of a program, Online Xcellence, sponsored by the Scottish government and organized by Brian Mathers, a real enthusiast in the search marketing world.
Two things came to mind as I read this post. The first was that this is another example of the generosity that Rand Fishkin so often displays. This not surprisingly permeates the culture in the company he founded, SEOmoz. It is part of what they call the TAGFEE Tenets. The acronym stands for:
Recently SEOmoz has taken a new direction and a new focus: The End of Consulting: A New Partnership & Our Focus on Software
Today I have two very big announcements. First, SEOmoz is exiting the consulting business to focus exclusively on our software model. And, second, we have an expanded partnership with Distilled (new US site: Distilled LLC), who’ll be taking over many of our consulting clients and opening offices here in Seattle. I’m going to … add detail on why we’re so bullish about the SEO software market.
I will have more to say on this change in a future post. What I wished to comment on in this post was the indication that Scottish entrepreneurs think online search engine marketing is central to future success.
Indeed it is. However there is a topic that is even more essential and must be discussed prior to this. It is the whole question of strategy. It can be called a marketing strategy since unless a company works well in its market place, it will not survive. I find that many companies slide by this question and do not answer the tough questions that deciding on strategy should pose. As Michael Porter, the strategy guru, said, strategy is about what you must say no to. It’s all about focus, focus, focus.
All this is by way of introduction to the E-Book, Marketing Right Now. This is now available as a free download. (This is a 1 Mb PDF file so please be patient.) Although it is intended for entrepreneurs and SOHOs (small office, home office), there are many big companies that could benefit from the rules set out in this slim book.
Some readers will find this book challenging. It has some very simple rules which most would accept as important and yet they do not apply them. Growing a business should take you out of your comfort zone. Unless you do that, you are not likely to succeed. This book’s chapter headings can give you a checklist of the key steps you must take to have a chance of being successful. Why not download it now and see what you should be doing differently.
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Watchers of the Internet scene were aware, as Taiyo Johnson reported, that local businesses no longer need a website. In its Local Business Center, Google works hard to develop listings for all local businesses. Now the Google Local Business Center is turning into a small business blog dashboard. Each business has a Place Page.
As Google advises, you can now post to your Place Page.
Posting to your Place Page allows you to give Google Maps users recent updates about your business. These posts can be changed quickly, so posts to your Place Page allow the Local Business Center to keep up with the pace of your business. Once you post a message expect 5-10 minutes before it shows on the Place Page.
If you found that a somewhat surprising development, then hold on to your hats since Google now seems to be trying to supplant Facebook and Twitter in offering a new type of social media, Buzz.
Google Buzz is Google’s attempt at tackling the latest social networking craze. While Google has tried before at taking this market over with its own services such as Orkut, Knol, Picasa to name a few – none are even close to being true rivlas with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
So Google Buzz will let you see all your contact’s status updates from a wide variety of networks and allow you to see them all from the comfort of your own Gmail account. This means it is in pretty close competition with sites like Friendfeed as well as Facebook – who has also started to integrate messages from other locations. I guess if you can’t beat them – join them, take all their stuff, put it all on your site… and call it Google Buzz!
Provided you’re happy to go with Google as your Internet infrastructure, it all looks pretty appealing. However the rocky progress of the Local Business Center shows that relying on computer based systems without human over-ride can produce very problematic results. It will be interesting to see whether Google can finetune Buzz and get it to appeal on a consistent basis to its users. First signs leave that as a big question mark.
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