Anche i Giganti investono sulle risorse Umane
12 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
In un periodo in cui la risora umana deve essere assolutamente rivalutata e rilanciata, di seguito trovate alcune attività svolte da IBM, nell’ambito HR.
Non sempre si ricorda che le Aziende sono fatte di persone, il maggior coinvolgimento nelle attività permette di raggiungere mete e obiettivi mai pensati prima.
UNITE MIGLIORAMENTO CONTINUO e HR e vi assicuro che raggiungere grandi obiettivi.
di seguito un esempio:
It’s rare to find a corporate human resources function that accelerates change by actively finding ways to help drive new strategies. Most HR groups sit back and wait for requests from the business for administrative people transactions. In their role of stewards of policy compliance, they can tend to be a brake on change.
But not at IBM. Its HR function has been instrumental in the $100 billion company’s metamorphosis from a floundering computer manufacturer in the 1990s to a prosperous software and consulting services company today. HR has helped the organization absorb more than 125 acquisitions since 2000, and integrate globally, saving $6 billion since 2005.
When Randy MacDonald arrived at IBM in 2000 as senior vice president of HR, he felt the function was too focused on administration. “I have a fundamental belief that it’s important to decide what is core and non-core,” he told me recently. “Administrative responsibilities, such as getting paychecks out on time, are not core. Attracting, retaining, and motivating employees are all core. In HR, we need to focus on what is important and get out in front of issues — not just be reactive. HR should look at the direction of the company and say, ‘We need to be here right along with the business.’ ”
Over the last decade, HR at IBM took a number of steps to help drive operational improvement:
- Delivered the new skills IBM needed at the front lines. HR reinvented the way it trained and developed talent. We know, for example, that developing leaders is essential. But in a world in which bringing managers in every year for a week of offsite training is so 1960s, how do you make the leadership development process relevant to the global economy? Randy MacDonald: “We observed that 80% of leadership development is based on work experience. We looked to see what we could do to create a work-related development opportunity. In growth markets like Kenya and Malaysia, people needed to develop marketing and innovation skills. In developed countries, such as France and the U.K., people already had that experience. We came up with ‘Global Enablement Teams‘: we took the top people in mature markets and assigned them to help and mentor people in the growth markets. Growth market leaders learn from major markets, and equally important, vice versa.”
- Fostered global teamwork. Prior to 2002, when Sam Palmisano became CEO, IBM had a series of feuding fiefdoms — 170 country units — each with its own policies, procedures, and processes. Randy MacDonald: “Over the past decade we moved from a multinational organization to a globally integrated enterprise with global standard processes. For example, I have taken 8,000 HR software applications (largely focused on the HR needs of individual IBM country units) down to under 1,000. There was lots of resistance. Another example: In the U.S., ‘diversity’ tends to be programs and policies around ethnic identity and gender. In China, or Brazil, diversity is defined differently. We’re starting to expand ‘diversity’ to also mean ‘inclusion’ — helping people work together.”
- Created a results-focused culture. During IBM’s days of malaise, buck-passing had become an art form. As former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner said, “Instead of grabbing available resources and authority, they waited for the boss to tell them what do; they delegated up.” HR can play a lynchpin role in building a performance culture: defining, collecting and analyzing data to understand whether employees are meeting their personal goals. This is about using the technology of “business analytics” within the workforce, bringing vital statistics to the art of performance reviews. Says MacDonald: “The core of a performance-based culture is more use of analytics. We needed to start in HR by becoming more analytical, using data, defining cause-and-effect relationships, and tying HR activities to business results.”
HR’s focus at IBM today is on finding and developing more innovative employees, in concert with IBM’s strategy of a “smarter planet” — improving the world through “green tech,” “smart grids,” water management systems, and so forth.
“We link our external branding to our internal brand,” MacDonald explains. “Our ‘Smarter Planet’ campaign is enormously attractive. In fact, we hire nine out of ten people we go after because they are excited by the possibilities of improving how the world works. Another ripe area for innovation is knowledge management and the impact of social media. For example, one of the reasons we can recruit much more rapidly these days is through the use of social media.” IBM encourages employees to use social media — a far cry from the day when no one could communicate externally without prior approval. (IBM has instituted social media guidelines to help employees understand best practices when they blog, Tweet, and the like.)
If few HR organizations take a proactive role in operational improvement, what is different about IBM?
I see two key characteristics: dissatisfaction with the status quo, and managing for the long term. Here’s how Randy MacDonald explains it: “It’s built into IBM that once we attain a level of performance, we raise the bar.” IBM is also different because it hires and develops people for the long term at all levels — not just for today’s job openings and not just senior management. As Sam Palmisano said, “To develop talent that can lead the enterprise generation after generation takes money, time and patience. And this is not just about people at the top — it’s about developing future leaders broadly and deeply throughout the organization.”
I vostri collaboratori sanno il massimo?
10 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Vi lascio a questa interessante lettura che esplica chiaramente quanti si pensi all’oggi e ai problemi di tutti i giorni e non all’evolversi delle situazioni.
Inoltre, le interviste fatte ai diversi CEO, dimostrano quanto non sia reale quanto dicono, altrimenti non esisterebbe la consulenza e il coaching, cosa che in questo momento si sta evolvendo in maniera forte.
At the World Economic Forum last week, I attended a small dinner that included eight Nobel Prize winners. What a privilege in itself.
The question the Laureates were asked to address was “What do you see as the world’s biggest challenges?” They facilitated conversations at each table, and at the end, each of them reported out.
Their suggestions included overpopulation, unemployment, the environment, and inequality. Each of the Nobel winners was eloquent and wise about these issues, but the reality is that the challenges are familiar, and they’re getting worse, not better. The common denominator among all of them is that they are problems created by humans. So why can’t we humans solve them?
The most basic answer is that we don’t make a connection between our current behavior and its future consequences. As Muhammad Yunus, the Bagladeshi economist, put it, “Leaders don’t have time for the future because they’re too busy with the present.”
The more primitive parts of our brain conspire against our thinking about the future. Our amygdala is designed to be hyper alert to signs of threat, but only immediate threat. At the same time, we’re powerfully pulled to immediate gratification, even if it’s undermining our own long-term well-being.
As the wonderfully gentle and self-effacing astrophysicist and two-time Nobel Prize winner Saul Perlmutter put it, “We’re limited by being human. We want results fast, and we discount the future.”
Consider, for example how this applies to companies and their employees. The factual arguments for investing in employee well-being — so that people can bring more of themselves to work every day — are now overwhelming.
A meta-analysis of existing research, conducted by three Harvard researchers, found that the savings from wellness programs in organizations averages $3.27 for every dollar spent. That’s true even though the quality and depth of many such programs is still very limited.
At one point during a Davos session last week, I asked more than a half dozen CEOs at a discussion I was leading, “Do you believe that your employees perform better if they’re happier and healthier? The unsurprising and unanimous answer was “Yes.” Then I asked the CEOs, “If that’s the case, how much time, energy and money do you invest in insuring that your employees are healthier and happier?” Nearly all of them agreed the answer was very little.
The value of investing money and time in taking care of employees, rather than simply trying to get more out of them, can seem hard to measure. Also, because it doesn’t produce instant results, it may seem at odds with the urgent aim of getting more done, faster, right now.
When we’re run by the more primitive parts of our brain — and we are far more often than we recognize — we become myopically short-term in our perspective.
So what’s the antidote? It’s to rely more on our pre-frontal cortex, which allows humans alone to imagine the future consequences of our actions. Too often, instead, we use our pre-frontal cortex after the fact, to rationalize and minimize our short-term and ultimately self-defeating behaviors.
We don’t lack for potential solutions to our problems so much as we do the willingness to intelligently sacrifice in the short term, in the service of generating more value in the long term.
To do that, we need to learn to better regulate our emotions, which begins with gaining more control of our attention. That’s the next great evolutionary leap, and it’s on the horizon.
The most interesting conversations I had at Davos were with two neuroscientists — Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin and Tania Singer of the Max Planck Institute — and one of their experimental subjects, the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.
Through their research, both Davidson and Singer have demonstrated that our brains have extraordinary plasticity. It’s possible, they’ve found, for human beings to systematically train the regulation of negative emotion and to increase our capacity for calm reflectiveness in the face of high stress. MRI scans can measure, for instance, brain activity associated with empathy and compassion — and people can cultivate those attributes through deliberate practice. Mathieu Richard, who runs 110 humanitarian programs around the world, has done precisely that.
Our own work at The Energy Project focuses on helping individuals and organizations institute highly specific rituals — behaviors and practices that eventually become automatic and serve sustainable well-being and effectiveness.
We can learn to be far more conscious and intentional in our behavior, and less self-centered and short-term in our perspective. Doing so requires deliberate practice.
Cosa è la Leadership
4 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Quante volte si è parlato di leadership, ma ancor di più se ne sente l’esigenza oggi.
Di seguito un articolo che descrive a pieno e in maniera molto semplice cosa vuol dire Leadership
Voi avete queste caratteristiche?
This may seem like a fairly simple question. As an author who has written, trained and spoken on leadership for a number of years, I know there are nearly as many definitions as there are people to define it.
If you are, or aspire to be, a leader your personal answer to this question is important; it will, knowingly or not, inform and guide many of the decisions you make and the tasks that you perform while leading.
My goal in this article is to share some things that leadership is, and some things that it is not. I hope my insights will cause you to think and – whether you agree or not – to use these ideas to help you form a clearer definition of what leadership is.
What Leadership Is
Complex. In visiting with an experienced aerospace engineer (a.k.a. a rocket scientist), I asked him which was more complex – rocket science or leadership. His response was swift and simple. “Leadership is much more complex. In my world we can come up with the right answer. We know the equations and formulas. If we put the right numbers into them, and do the right things, we will get guaranteed results. But as a leader you are dealing with people – and people are inherently more complex. And the issues, while perhaps not as dramatic as sending a rocket into orbit, are far more dynamic and contain tremendous amounts of gray area.” I couldn’t have said it better. Leadership isn’t easy or simple. And, like rocket science, it is something that requires lots of study and practice to become skilled.
Action. Leadership is often considered a thing, i.e. “She is the leader.” From a dictionary perspective leadership is a noun, but it also is a verb. Leadership is not really something to have or possess; it is something to do. When you think about leadership, think actions; think behaviors. It is with better actions and behavior that you will gain better results.
Responsibility. If you are placed in or accept a formal (or informal) role of leadership, you have taken on a responsibility. It is easy to think about that if you are President, a C.E.O. or a business owner. The fact is that every leadership action carries responsibility – no matter your “title” or job description. People are looking to you. If you are leading, people are following you. You have a responsibility therefore for more than yourself and your own results.
Opportunity. As a leader you have an opportunity to make a difference: for Customers, for the organization, for those you lead, for the world at large. When you exhibit the behaviors of leadership you are actively trying to create new results that will make a difference in the world. Few things hold greater opportunity than this.
What Leadership Isn’t
Management. The skills of management are focused on things, processes and procedures. The skills of leadership focus on people, vision and development. Both are valuable skill sets and in many cases we need to exhibit both, but great leaders aren’t necessarily great managers and vice versa.
A title or position. You are a leader when people follow you. That action of others isn’t guaranteed by a job title, the color of your desk or the size of your office. A title that proclaims you a leader doesn’t make you a leader any more than calling a lion a zebra creates black stripes.
A power grab. Others giving you power as a leader is different than people who want power. True leadership comes from your relentless focus on serving others, not wanting to be powerful. Leaders inherently have a great deal of influence, and therefore a certain amount of power, but that isn’t a true leaders focus.
A gift from birth. Leadership skills aren’t doled out in the genetics of some while others are left wanting. Everyone is given a unique bundle of DNA that can allow some to become highly effective, even remarkable, leaders. Do some people have innate strengths that help them as leaders? Of course, but so do you – even if they are different strengths. None of that matters though if you don’t do the things to use those strengths and do the things to improve in areas that are harder for you. Few things are sadder than unfulfilled potential. Leadership success isn’t nearly as much about genetics as it is learning and improvement.
This isn’t a complete list in either case – creating some sort of compendium wasn’t my goal. My goal, as stated earlier, was to give you food for thought. I’ve set the table, now I hope you sit down and eat at this table of ideas to help you build your own definition of leadership.
Potential Pointer: Your definition of leadership will have a huge impact on how you behave and perform as a leader. Time spent thinking about the role and your beliefs about it will have a drastic influence on the results you see as a leader. Because of this, time spent thinking about and answering the question, “What is leadership?” is time well spent.
Rovinare i migliori talenti – prendiamo spunto per migliorare le nostre aziende –
2 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Perchè le aziende anche quando hanno degli ottimi talenti non sanno valutarli o rivalutarli, e quindi nel tempo tendono a perderli?
inoltre i punti sotto indicati possono essere utili per effettuare un check Aziendale
Buona lettura, attendo commenti
Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent
Whether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.
Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don’t. I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent :
- Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say “check please.”
- Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — by definition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a “nice to have” rather than “must have” conversation. However, unless you see it as a “must have,” say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.
- Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’t really interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4….
- No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’ll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.
- Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or “brickhouse” around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be “jerked around.” If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’ve promised.
- Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs. Although you can’t “jerk around” top talent, it’s a mistake to treat top talent leading a project as “untouchable.” We’re not saying that you need to get into anyone’s business or telling them what to do. However, top talent demands accountability from others and doesn’t mind being held accountable for their projects. Therefore, have regular touch points with your best people as they work through their projects. They’ll appreciate your insights/observations/suggestions — as long as they don’t spillover into preaching.
- Top Talent likes other Top Talent. What are the rest of the people around your top talent like? Many organizations keep some people on the payroll that rationally shouldn’t be there. You’ll get a litany of rationales explaining why when you ask. “It’s too hard to find a replacement for him/her….” “Now’s not the time….” However, doing exit interviews with the best people leaving big companies you often hear how they were turned off by some of their former “team mates.” If you want to keep your best people, make sure they’re surrounded by other great people.
- The Missing Vision Thing. This might sound obvious, but is the future of your organization exciting? What strategy are you executing? What is the vision you want this talented person to fulfill? Did they have a say/input into this vision? If the answer is no, there’s work to do — and fast.
- Lack of Open-Mindedness. The best people want to share their ideas and have them listened to. However, a lot of companies have a vision/strategy which they are trying to execute against — and, often find opposing voices to this strategy as an annoyance and a sign that someone’s not a “team player.” If all the best people are leaving and disagreeing with the strategy, you’re left with a bunch of “yes” people saying the same things to each other. You’ve got to be able to listen to others’ points of view — always incorporating the best parts of these new suggestions.
- Who’s the Boss? If a few people have recently quit at your company who report to the same boss, it’s likely not a coincidence. We’ll often get asked to come in and “fix” someone who’s a great sales person, engineer, or is a founder, but who is driving everyone around them “nuts.” We can try, but unfortunately, executive coaching usually only works 33% of the time in these cases. You’re better off trying to find another spot for them in the organization — or, at the very least, not overseeing your high-potential talent that you want to keep.
It’s never a one-way street. Top talent has to assume some responsibility as much as the organization. However, with the scarcity of talent — which will only increase in the next 5 years — Smart Organizations are ones who get out in front of these ten things, rather than wait for their people to come to them, asking to implement this list.
Linee guida per una rapida trasformazione LEAN from HBR.org
30 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Anche la famosa importante rivista Harvard Business Review, sottolinea come trasformare l’azienda verso un processo LEAN – ci tengo a sottolineare che non si tratta di un passaggio facile e nemmeno immediato (forse per qualche attività), ma indispensabile per crescere e sviluppare il VERO VALORE dell’Azienda
Buona Lettura
One of the most common mistakes that companies make when embarking on a lean program is trying to do too much at once. These “boil-the-ocean” initiatives are long, costly and often end up stalling under the weight of their own ambition.
The fact is, smaller and faster can be better when it comes to lean. One thing we’ve consistently seen in our work with manufacturers is what a huge impact a quick plant “health check” and a few focused changes can have on cost and performance. Companies can see major savings in specific areas in just a few weeks. The key is to pick the right improvement levers by taking the time to quantify the value they could deliver, weigh the trade-offs, and choose only the top three or four priorities to tackle immediately.
Sounds simple, right? The problem is that many companies either don’t take the time or don’t have the analytical skills needed to look cross-functionally, dig deep, find the underlying cost drivers, quantify the improvement opportunities and evaluate the trade-offs. Once they bring these diagnostic skills to the table, they can see the potential big wins.
Clarity on the payoff is a critical first step, but sometimes even when the source of problems and the financial upside of addressing them are clear, no action is taken. There may be too many competing priorities, not enough manpower, limited access to the capital needed to get the ball rolling, or just plain inertia. Other times companies think they’ve already done all they can to reduce waste, cut costs, and improve efficiency, so they don’t bother to look any further. For example, one manufacturer we worked with cut costs so deeply that it assumed its people had to be more productive. But by simply observing the crew and their activities on the production line, we saw just the opposite — too much downtime, wasted effort and inefficient work habits. The company’s lean efforts simply hadn’t gone far enough.
In addition to the above, there are often “hidden” costs that — by definition — aren’t immediately visible, especially in complex global production networks. One company had a continuous improvement program underway and thought it was quite lean. But a cost comparison across its network of plants revealed a multi-million dollar cost gap between the top and bottom performers. By doing a deeper analysis of underlying cost drivers such as scale, efficiency, overhead, and logistics, the company gained new insights into why some plants and geographies performed so much better than others — and what high-impact areas to tackle for greater savings.
Based on our experience, the best opportunities for quick improvements in manufacturing costs and performance typically lie in five key areas:
Equipment — By reducing machine downtime, improving maintenance and boosting overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and output
Processes — By standardizing work, cutting out low-value steps, optimizing work flow and improving line staffing
Material yield — By reducing loss from scrap and obsolescence
Logistics — By boosting warehouse productivity and minimizing freight costs
Inventory — By right-sizing, rethinking levels of buffer stock, streamlining material flows and improving demand forecasts
Although these categories are quite broad, the key is to focus sharply on a small number of specific levers in a few high-impact areas of the plant. Interestingly, at virtually every company we work with, the biggest opportunities for quick wins are in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), line staffing, and scrap reduction — probably because these areas are easy to analyze, can be changed without a major capital investment, and almost always have room for improvement no matter how much attention has been paid to them in the past.
Just observing a plant’s operations can deliver “aha” moments that lead to real insight and simple fixes. For instance, at an industrial products manufacturer with a one-operator-per-line set up, we noticed that the line operators were walking around a lot and doing things that seemed to add little value. This excessive movement was a clear red flag. By reorganizing the work flows and slightly modifying the production lines so the work area was more concentrated, the manufacturer was able to assign each operator two lines instead of one —reducing labor costs by about 40 percent.
Another quick, simple fix with a big payoff was at the factory of an automotive company. The tip-off there was seeing parts and materials sitting on the floor, where they often ended up getting damaged by forklifts or workers before they could be used. The manufacturer saved millions of dollars per year simply by designating a section on the shop floor for this inventory, creating racks to move it off of the floor and putting guardrails around it to protect it from damage.
But sometimes the problems aren’t so obvious. In these cases, a deep analysis often reveals a very counterintuitive solution. For instance, we were looking into a manufacturer’s warehouse operations. The warehouse had slotted its SKUs in a way that seemed to make sense — the high-volume movers were closest to the main doors. Unfortunately, this layout actually resulted in congestion, interference and delays. By creating a “heat map” showing relative areas of activity throughout the warehouse in a typical week, we were able to reorganize the layout and traffic patterns to make better use of the space. These changes shortened movement and transit times by 20 – 25 percent overall.
If new best practices such as these are shared among all of a company’s factories, a multiplier effect often takes hold and costs can drop substantially across the whole production network. The right metrics and incentives can ensure that this sharing happens. Again, small changes and big results.
Done right, a “fast lean” approach can generate major savings and be a catalyst for a larger lean transformation, even funding it. To get started, we would suggest companies keep in mind four simple guidelines:
Prioritize opportunities based on time to results, relative effort and financial impact
Focus scarce resources on top priorities to generate quick wins
Develop a coordinated effort within and across plants to rapidly surface and adopt best practices
Create an environment that rewards speed and an acceptable level of risk taking
If a broader lean program is already underway, this approach can turbo-charge it and increase momentum. There’s nothing more invigorating to an organization than fast, visible performance improvements that people can see and touch — and that hit the bottom line.
Cina Vantaggio di flessibilità non solo di costo
25 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Chi parla di un solo vantaggio di costo per la China, forse non ha ben chiara la visione di quanto realmente accade, e questo si lega in maniera importante alle temute e tanto discusse liberalizzazioni.
La flessibilità, la disponibilità, la prontezza di risposta al mercato sono elementi fondamentali e oramai imprescindibili per un azienda che vuole ritenersi competitiva, il solo costo non è sempre sufficiente.
Di seguito un articolo del New York Times, che ci aiuta a capire, cosa sono in grado di fare i Cinesi per lavorare.
Prima di leggere vi faccio alcune domande:
– In Italia siamo essere tutti sufficientemente flessibili?
– Perchè fa tanta paura la liberalizzazione soprattutto a tutti gli Italiani?
Buona lettura
An article in the New York Times explains the reason why manufacturing the iPhone in United States will likely never happen 1:
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
The article goes on and explains that it is flexibility and NOT cost that makes China so competitive. With added commentary that the Middle Income in America will continued to get squeezed and eventually disappear, the article is overall very unoptomistic on the prospects of America being able to compete with China. Indeed, the article claims that flexibility of that type is unheard of and virtually impossible in America.
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that this type of Taylorism and inhumane treatment of people is not allowed via government legislation. True, whenever the government steps in, lead time increases and costs also increase, but sometimes the price for liberty requires added precautions and boundaries that keep people from treating others inhumanely. Freedom has bounds.
In general, there are two things wrong with the New York Times article:
It is celebrating slavery. By claiming that flexibility will, in its current state and in the end, beat out America, the article is inadvertently celebrating slavery. If the price of flexibility for a company like Apple means that people work 14 hours and $17 a day and are woken up in the middle of the night and given a biscuit and tea to then work some more because of a last minute design change from Apple, then China wins on flexibility.
Their definition of “flexibility” fails to acknowledge the power of Lean Manufacturing for last minute changes the article describes. In fact, lean manufacturing – properly applied and executed – shines in situations where there are last minute changes, provided the operation had Heijunka in place and was already operating on a single piece flow philosophy. But that approach doesn’t require people waking up in the middle of the night and slavery-like conditions. It requires a well-formed and designed operation built on the tenets of lean manufacturing.
Despite Apple’s Code of Conduct for suppliers, last minute design changes like the article describes will continue to “train” suppliers to treat their people badly. Indeed, Apple will continue to be demanding on the one hand, but making it almost impossible for suppliers to comply to its demands on the other.
WTCO presenta WTRADING
23 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
WTCO introduce nuove attività
WTRADING nasce dall’esperienza Internazionale dello staff WTCO nella ricerca di fornitori e clienti per conto dei nostri Clienti.
Questa esperienza ci ha permesso di consolidare una struttura dedita alla ricerca, al contatto e alla trattativa per conto dei nostri Clienti di quanto da loro richiesto senza che li stessi possano comparire.
Analizzare la concorrenza ed entrarVi in contatto in maniera diretta, acquistare attrezzature e macchinari senza comparire direttamente
In aggiunta il nostro lavoro, Vi permetterà di avere una chiara visione di quanto ricercato in quanto a corredo dell’attività andremo ad effettuare tutte quelle valutazioni volte a verificare che il rapporto Prezzo/Qualità rispetti le condizioni di Mercato
Di seguito l’elenco delle attività correlate:
- Preventivazione ed Acquisto Attrezzature
- Preventivazione ed Acquisto Automobili e Automezzi aziendali
- Acquisizioni Aziendali (in questa area forniamo anche servizi correlati)
- Acquisizione di Immobili
- Vendita di Aziende
- Vendita di attrezzature
- Vendita Pubblicità
il Nostro motto è Vendere e creare nuove opportunità commerciali
WTCO Commercial and Marketing
17 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Gentilissimi
siamo a comunicarvi che la WTCO lanci ufficialmente un ulteriore servizio a supporto delle Aziende:
COMMERCIAL and MARKETING
Nessun dettaglio viene lasciato al caso!
Traduciamo le parole in azioni
Raccogliamo insieme a voi i dati necessari, gli analizziamo e creazione la strategia più adatta…e non solo, il nostro staff continuerà a supportarvi in ogni momento per fare si che i dati raccolti diventino obiettivi concreti.
Creazione e sviluppo di un piano di Marketing
Insieme al team aziendale andremo a costruire un piano di marketing dettagliato, in modo da poter indirizzare le scelte aziendali – il lavoro in team è necessario al fine di trasferire il metodo e gli strumenti direttamente a tutti i principali attori
Strategia commerciale e collaborazione continua
Come di possiamo muovere nel mercato? Come raggiungere nuovi potenziali clienti? In che modo possiamo misurare le nostre perfomance commerciali al di fuori del fatturato? – un percorso che andremo a sviluppare insieme in ogni momento
Attività direttamente in campo
Spesso la formazione del personale commerciale non viene considerata, e non vengono fatti raffronti sulle modalità di approccio ai nostri clienti vecchi e nuovi.
Vi accompagneremo passo passo in questo percorso
Formazione del reparto marketing e commerciale
Volete creare un reparto marketing commerciale competitivo?
La formazione rappresenta la base di questo obiettivo– inoltre continueremo a tenervi aggiornati sulle nuove tendenze e sulle nuove metodologie
5 Punti per essere un Buon leader
16 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Da accanito lettore del Blog della HBR, ci tengo a sottoporvi un articolo estremamente interessante che indica la strada da seguire per i cosidetti nuovi Leader.
Oggi siamo di fronte ad un periodo i VERI leader stentano ad emergere, per mancanza di opportunità forse, o per paura, o ancora per mancanza di esperienza, ma quello che conta è che oggi è il momento di emergere e di venire fuori rapidamente, solamente con nuovi Leader carichi di energie, potremo far rinascere l’economia
Buona Lettura
HBR.org | John Coleman and Bill George
As the New Year approaches, people will be making resolutions to eat better, exercise more, get that promotion at work, or spend more time with their families. While these are worthwhile goals, we have a more important challenge for young people: Think seriously about your development as a leader.
These are tough times. Many leaders of the baby boomer generation have failed in their responsibilities by placing their self-interest ahead of their organizations. In so doing, they have failed to serve society’s best interests. As a result, more young leaders from Gen X and the Millennials are being asked to take on major leadership responsibilities. To be prepared for the challenges you will face, we propose the following resolutions this New Year’s:
Find a trustworthy mentor: Mentorship is a critical component of your development as a leader. A 2004 study showed that young leaders with mentors were more likely succeed professionally and experience career satisfaction. The essence of effective mentoring is developing a trusting relationship between the mentor and mentee. Identify someone with whom you have a genuine chemistry and who is committed to your development. Although many mentees do not realize it, a sound relationship is a two-way street that benefits both parties — not just the mentee. We suggest looking for mentors whom you admire for their values and character more than their success.
Form a leadership development group: Most of us have little time to reflect on the values and characteristics we want to define us as leaders, the difficulties we’re facing, or the long-term impact we hope to have. Forming a leadership development group can give you the space you need to think deeply about these subjects. Leadership development groups are groups of six to eight people who meet to share their personal challenges and discuss the most important questions in their lives. Find people you can trust, and make a commitment to be one another’s confidential counselors. Meet regularly, and share openly your life stories, crucibles, passions and fears, while offering each other honest feedback.
Volunteer in a civic or service organization: Have you served your community this year? In the Facebook era it’s easy to lose touch with our real-world neighbors. Long hours often cause us to avoid volunteer opportunities. Participating in local organizations — from religious organizations to civic groups — can give you early leadership experiences, provide real connection to your neighbors, and offer opportunities to serve others. It adds a dimension to your life that work can’t, and helps you develop and solidify your character while giving back to the community. You will find your time serving a community organization is highly rewarding while broadening your outlook on people and life.
Work in or travel to one new country: “The world is flat,” as Tom Friedman puts it, so it has never been more important to get global experience. In the future cultural sensitivity will be a more important characteristic for leaders than pure intellectual ability. John’s survey of more than 500 top MBAs found that on average they had worked in four countries prior to entering graduate school and expect to work in five more in the next ten years. Having a global mindset and the ability to collaborate effectively across cultures are essential qualities for aspiring leaders of global organizations.
Finally, ask more questions than you answer: With the high velocity of change in the world, it is impossible to have answers to all the important questions. Much more important is a deep curiosity about the world and the ability to frame the right questions in profound ways. The world’s toughest problems cannot be solved by you or any one organization. Your role will be to bring the right people together to address the challenging issues you raise. Our research demonstrates that the biggest mistakes result from decisions made by people without deep consideration of thoughtful questions.
Young leaders will soon be asked to take on major leadership responsibilities in their organizations and their communities. We believe it is essential that they take steps like these in order to be prepared for the difficult leadership challenges they will face. There’s no better time to get started than the coming year.
WTCO interviene presso ALMA GRADUATE SCHOOL
13 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
WTCO nella figura del Dott.PAOLO ZANELLA, senior Partner WTCO, interverrà alla ALMA GRADUATE SCHOOL, una delle scuole di Management più prestigiose in ITALIA, nella giornata di sabato 18.01.12, presentando le nostre competenze e le nostre esperienze consulenziali nel ramo dei beni di lusso
Non Mancate
Wtco 
Devi effettuare l'accesso per postare un commento.