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Subject: Jun-Aug 2004 VMS3.info: Introducing
the Value Framework® Institute
Value
Framework® Institute eZine: Your Link to Business Strategy
June 1, 2004
*5,200 subscribers* Volume 6, Issue 4
Online at http://ValueFrameworkInstitute.org/publications.html
This Issue online at http://ValueFrameworkInstitute.org/Jun-Aug2004/
Business
News via the Value Framework® Lenses
Management Perspective
News MODEL:
PROCESS Calling JetBlue
JetBlue's recipe
for customer service success combines work-at-home moms, flexible schedules, employee
education, individual initiative, and... Potbelly Bear. To fully appreciate the
challenges facing JetBlue as it hires more employees and expands to more locations
around the country, you have to venture beyond its New York offices and travel
halfway across the country to Salt Lake City. You have to go to a quiet residential
neighborhood and to a split-level house with a kid-sized basketball goal in the
driveway. You have to go upstairs and visit 4-year-old Gracie Driffill's bedroom.
This is how far JetBlue's culture has to reach. In fact, this is where the JetBlue
experience begins for more than 100 customers a night, under the watchful eye
of Raggedy Ann, Potbelly Bear, and Gracie's other dolls, and occasionally, Chewy,
a Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix. Web-User Satisfaction
on the Upswing
Chances are two in three that you'll be happy with the
outcome of your next Web site visit, according to a recent survey. That's not
bad, considering that only seven years ago your odds of a successful visit were
only two in five. The news isn't all positive, however: Newbies still suffer from
information overload, and site-specific searches need a lot of help. Painless
Payroll
U.S. Repeating Arms has been in business for a century and a half.
During that time, the company's brands -- including Winchester and Browning --
have come to play a significant part in American history. Whie U.S. Repeating
Arms is now owned by a Belgian concern, the company still manufactures the Winchester
brand in New Haven, Connecticut. Allen Paul, director of MIS for U.S. Repeating
Arms, recently discussed the New Haven location's payroll processes with Line56.
Online Customer Service
In the world of e-business,
TaylorMade-adidas Golf may best be known for its demand-sensitive supply chain,
which incorporates both forecasting and customization. However, the company is
also in the advanced stages of another initiative, a contact center that includes
an e-mail channel.
Generically, TaylorMade-adidas Golf's reasons for going
beyond the phone have to do with a desire to support customers via every channel
while simultaneously cutting down the organizational costs of fielding phone calls.
2003 Online Content
Spending Up Almost 19 Percent
Spending by U.S. consumers for online content
rose almost 19 percent to $1.56 billion in 2003 from 2002, largely fueled by increases
in the two top categories, the Online Publishers Association and comScore Networks
said on Monday.
EBay's Growth Just Beginning
When sifting
through the rubble of the Internet economy, Meg Whitman is among the few who not
only survived but did quite well. Under her stewardship, eBay -- now one of the
most highly valued companies in the United States -- has shown steady growth in
revenue, profit and stock price, even following the aftermath of the dot-com implosion
that began in March 2000. Now that the economy appears to be recovering, eBay's
chief executive has turned her attention to small businesses, which are increasingly
becoming eBay's bread and butter. MODEL:
PARTICIPANTS
Part-Tracking Smarts
Following every step from
receiving to shipping, enforcing proper behavior at each node, means 98 percent
inventory accuracy for Victor Manufacturing. "In the automotive industry,
on-time delivery is not a goal," says Andy Hrasky, controller of parts supplier
Victor Manufacturing. "It is a requirement." Victor Manufacturing should
know. Hrasky points out that penalties for late delivery range from a lower supplier
rating -- which could cut down on future business from a big original equipment
manufacturer (OEM) -- to a $5,000-a-minute penalty clause in situations involving
OEM production line shutdowns.
Online Channel Key for Many Small Businesses
Small
business owners might do well to consider ways to leverage the Internet, since
new data indicates that more businesses than ever are moving online -- and expect
to be more profitable as a result. According to a new survey conducted last month
by Harris Interactive, a staggering 70 percent of small businesses in the U.S.
already have an online presence, or will have one by the end of the year. That's
a massive change from the 35 percent of American small businesses that had their
own Internet site at the end of 2002, based on a report by the U.S. Small Business
Administration's Advocacy Office.
Pro-Level Storefront, Hosting Pays Off
Every e-tailer relies on a handful of tools, software and hardware, to make their
work more efficient -- and ideally, profitable. For Andy Erickson, it's a group
of three: his shopping cart and site-building software, ShopSite; his Web analytics
tool, Urchin; and a hosting service that he feels secure about. As the owner of
Colorado-based Legendary Toys, which specializes in games and toys relating to
myths and legends (think Harry Potter), Erickson's task are myriad. In true entrepreneurial
fashion, Erickson and his wife do most of the heavy lifting, from maintaining
inventory to packing and shipping. Erickson also does site updates himself, which
is why he's a big fan of ShopSite. MODEL: INFLUENCES
Your CEO Still Doesn't Get IT
More
than two-thirds of CIOs say that their CEOs view IT as a cost of doing business--and
not as a business enabler. Rats. But there are ways to change that. Read here. Sasser
infections hit Amex, others
Security experts are continuing to issue warnings
about the Sasser Internet worm as organizations struggled to clean up the damage
caused by infected hosts. Spending
on IT is a key component of growth plans for small
and medium-size businesses,
according to a recent report by Forrester Research. More
teens flock to the Web
JupiterResearch predicted in a study that the number
of teenagers who go online in the United States will jump to 22 million in 2008
from the current average of 18 million. The study, released Thursday, picked a
core group of "teen influencers," who make up around 17 percent of online
teenagers and heavily influence both their friends and families. That group spends
the most time online--around eight hours per week.
Google's Gmail faces trademark, privacy challenges
Civil liberties groups protests automated scanning of private communications.
The gigabyte storage capacity and long memory of Google Inc.'s planned Web-based
e-mail service are making it a big target for privacy campaigners -- and the name,
Gmail, could soon be the subject of a trademark dispute, too. Microsoft
can buy off Sun legal threats for 10 years
Microsoft has option to extend
the Covenant Not to Sue for Damages part of their agreement. As part of their
landmark agreement reached last week, Microsoft Corp. has the option to pay Sun
Microsystems Inc. millions of dollars each year to shield itself from patent infringement
lawsuits by its former nemesis, Sun's vice president for legal affairs said Thursday.
Microsoft will make annual payments if it decides to extend a part of last week's
agreement known as the "Covenant Not to Sue for Damages," under which
the companies agreed not to sue each other for past infringements. The agreement
gives Microsoft the option to extend the covenant to apply for up to 10 more years
by making annual payments to Sun. The payments could total up to $450 million
by 2014, Lee Patch, Sun vice president for legal affairs, said through his spokeswoman
Thursday. HP buys two companies to bolster services
Interest grows
in training IT professionals in best practices for delivery and support of IT
services. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has acquired two companies to boost its staff
and offerings in the area of IT service management. HP acquired IT Infrastructure
Management LLC in Dallas, which does business as ManageOne, and CEC Europe Service
Management Ltd. in London, so that it can strengthen its ability to train clients
on how to best manage their IT resources, HP announced Thursday. IBM-Microsoft
co-opetition heats up
Last week IBM announced a server-based strategy
aimed at users of desktop and mobile devices could raise its long-running "co-opetition"
with Microsoft to another level. STRATEGY: MANAGED
Getting Reorganization Right: How Bruce Chizen Drove Change and Innovation
at Adobe Systems
Five years ago, when the technology sector was booming,
Adobe Systems was in trouble. The company was respected for its technical prowess
and popular products, but Wall Street was skeptical; Japan, a major market, was
tanking; and Quark, Adobe's rival, launched a hostile takeover attempt. Forced
to swim or sink, Adobe Systems launched a massive turnaround effort spearheaded
by executive vice president Bruce Chizen, who is now the company's president and
CEO. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Chizen discusses how he and his colleagues
managed the turnaround, Adobe Systems' competitive strategy, and where the company
is headed in the future.
Why Global Business Needs Kinder, Gentler Entrepreneurs
and Leaders
Images of entrepreneurs and leaders tend to focus on the
vision and guts needed to get ventures off the ground or on the solitary hero
leading the crowds. At the recent Lauder Institute Alumni Association Global Business
Forum in New York , however, two panels on entrepreneurship and leadership debunked
these notions. Speakers at the conference said entrepreneurs need social networking
skills as much as business savvy to succeed. As for leaders who want to be effective
in global business, they need to learn that arrogance is out, humility is in.
A Framework for
21st Century Retailing
AMR Research identifies four key initiatives that
retailers
must execute in order to stay competitive against the likes
of Wal-Mart. Google
Announces Plans To Raise $2.7 Billion With IPO
Ending months of rumor,
Mountain View-based Google Inc, the Internet's most widely used search engine,
announced on Thursday that it plans to raise $2.7 billion through an initial public
offering of its stock. Google, which was founded in 1998, also said that it plans
to use an auction system to determine who will obtain the initial stock in the
company. "It is important to us to have a fair process for our IPO that is
inclusive of both small and large investors," the company said in its filing.
"Our goal is to have a share price that reflects a fair market valuation
of Google and that moves rationally based on changes in our business and the stock
market." Google also disclosed its financial statements for the first time,
showing that last year it had net income of $105.6 million on revenue of $961.9
million. Most of the company's revenue comes from advertising tied to search requests. E-commerce is coming of age, says
Paul Markillie, but not in the way predicted in the bubble years. WHEN the technology
bubble burst in 2000, the crazy valuations for online companies vanished with
it, and many businesses folded. The survivors plugged on as best they could, encouraged
by the growing number of internet users. Now valuations are rising again and some
of the dotcoms are making real profits, but the business world has become much
more cautious about the internet's potential. The funny thing is that the wild
predictions made at the height of the boom—namely, that vast chunks of the
world economy would move into cyberspace—are, in one way or another, coming
true. Sun offers new
pricing model for enterprises
Company launches new versions of its Java
Desktop and Java Enterprise System software. Sun Microsystems Inc. on Tuesday
plans to kick off its quarterly SunNetwork user conference in Shanghai with new
products designed to advance the company's strategy of offering new pricing models
to its enterprise customers, including new versions of its Java Desktop and Java
Enterprise System software. The company will also begin offering subscription-based
pricing for its StorEdge storage systems, which will range between $1.95 and $2.49
per gigabyte per month. Sun will begin offering storage management services on
a subscription basis as well, the company said.
About
the Author: Mitchell
Levy is CEO
and Chief Strategist of the Value Framework® Institute and President and CEO
of ECnow.com (http://ecnow.com/), a management
consulting firm helping companies grow with strategic consulting and targeted
business education. The strategic consulting component focuses on helping companies
choose and manage the business models they deploy, manage and evolve. Through
the Value Framework® (http://ValueFrameworkInstitute.org/)
we share a tool that allows the practitioner to merge strategic planning with
business process reengineering and execution.The
business education component involves custom programs as well as off-the-shelf
programs at Universities like San Jose State where we run the Silicon Valley Executive
Business Program (http://SiliconValleyPACE.com/).
Read more about Mr. Levy: http://ecnow.com/ml_bio.htm
Public speaking appearances I've given: http://ecnow.com/speaking.htm
Read about ECnow.com's media coverage: http://ecnow.com/media
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