QuickREAD

February 7, 2007

I Manufacture the Best Mousetrap in the World .... But No One Seems to Know That
If you build a truly better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. If only it were true! As marketers know, a better product without a marketing plan is like a tree falling in a forest that no one can see or hear.
Recent history suggests that this marketing lesson is as apt as ever in today's business world. Just ask the nearly 200 other video-sharing sites on the Web why YouTube sold for $2bn, and they didn't; or the dozen other makers of hard-drive-based MP3 players why Apple's iPod has 70 percent global market share, and they don't. Ask Apple itself about the crushing dominance of Windows over Mac OS.
Maybe these are better products. But one thing is certain: How companies market their offerings--online and offline--has as much to do with their success as the products themselves. In this age of social media, we're experiencing the most profound instance yet of the Better Mousetrap fallacy. Unless consumers can find our brands, share them with one another, and make our brands their own, we may wind up with the wrong markets, the wrong buzz, and the wrong mousetrap.
Source: Optimize, http://www.optimizemag.com

HP Plans to Slash Its IT Budget and Remain Effective. Can it Really Do That?
Can an information-technology department cut its annual spending by 30% and still remain effective? Hewlett-Packard is on track to do that under a five-year business transformation plan that calls for cutting information-technology costs from $3.04bn in 2003 to $2.11bn in 2008.
Source: Baseline, http://www.baselinemag.com

CPG Industry Finds that RFID Can Be Used for Root-Cause Analysis
In addition to using radio frequency identification data for tracking promotions or electronic proof of delivery, some consumer packaged goods companies have also realized they can use RFID and other data for root-cause analysis. Essentially, they are analyzing data from radio frequency identification systems, point-of-sale terminals and other sources to determine not just that there was or will be an out-of-stock situation in a store, but why the problem did (or will) occur.
Source: RFID Journal, http://www.rfidjournal.com

We Are the (Lean) Champions ... Not Just Today, But for Evermore
Who are the lean champions? Jamie Flinchbaugh, partner at the Lean Learning Center, Novi, Mich., says, "In the very best cases, the CEO is a driving force. But the main thing is to get it going, and next, to keep it going. You must be on the lean journey continuously, and you either are or are not. It can start with plant managers, process engineers, human resources, and even CFOs and controllers."
Source: The Manufacturer, http://www.themanufacturer.com

Accenture to Have More Employees in India than in the U.S.
Someone once said a tipping point occurs when a phenomenon starts to multiply exponentially, as though it were an infectious virus. Outsourcing's tipping point occurred recently when Accenture announced it would have more workers in India than in the United States by August.
Accenture CEO William Green says the consulting and outsourcing company will add 8,000 workers in India this year, bringing its total head count in the country to 35,000. That will surpass the 30,000 workers employed in Accenture's U.S. operations.
"Though we continue to hire in other locations, too, the recruitment will be the highest in the subcontinent, as India has become a critical part of the Accenture world and integral to our growth strategy," says Green.
With those words, Green opened the floodgates. The steady stream that has been carrying some U.S. tech jobs to India is poised to become a torrent. Why? Because until now no CEO of a major American company has gone on the record to say that he plans to make India his main base of operations.
Source: Information Week, http://www.informationweek.com

Regional Airfreight Operators Know It's Not Just About Long-Haul Carriers and Cargo
The growth of the regional air cargo industry in the United States and Europe mirrors that of its counterpart passenger business. Years ago, regional air cargo operators were small mom-and-pop operations flying bulk freight with small piston-powered aircraft. Today, the operations are more sophisticated. Operators fly larger pressurized equipment and have become an integral part of the global airfreight business.
Source: Air Cargo World, http://aircargoworld.com

Manufacturing Is Not Dead End for North American Workers--Even if the Image Suggests Otherwise
Manufacturing has a skilled-labor crisis, and it's projected to get even worse. Manufacturing is widely thought to be the three Ds -- dirty, dark and dangerous -- with no long-term career opportunities. Most parents, school counselors, neighbors and friends are telling our school children today to stay away from manufacturing, even though there are many relatively high-paying jobs available in North America for them -- if they receive the training needed to become the knowledge workers of the future. But it's up to manufacturers to get involved with changing the image of manufacturing in North America and to show parents, schools and our children that pursuing a career in manufacturing today is not a dead end.
Source: Industry Week, http://industryweek.com

Electronic Invoicing Makes Financial System Transparent to Execs Who Need the Information
Achieving real-time visibility into an organization's financial status means making key information not only current but transparent for the executives who need it to make decisions.
Business intelligence and enterprise resource planning systems help accomplish that, but an increasing number of companies are moving to electronic invoicing as the next step in reaching the levels of visibility they seek.
Eliminating paper invoices from the accounts payable process does more than just increase efficiency and accuracy. It also opens up that process so that the organization can assess comprehensively -- at any point in time -- its cash flow and liabilities to its suppliers.
Source: CRM Buyer, http://crmbuyer.com

U.S. Car Makers Turn to PLM, Other Technologies and Processes to Compete with Foreign OEMs
Companies like Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. are enjoying steady profits, thanks in part to their ability to push out cross-over vehicles, subcompact cars, and hybrids to a U.S. market increasingly disenchanted with gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.
The differences between how the North American and Japanese car companies were positioned to respond to this latest consumer trend has as much to do with product development practices as it does with organization and culture, experts say. Led by companies like Toyota, the Japanese auto makers have spent years and poured millions of dollars into creating an environment and a set of R&D business processes centered around concepts like continuous improvement, component reuse, and standardization. U.S. auto makers, on the other hand, have traditionally pursued product innovation around clean-slate designs.
Yet, faced with shrinking profits and the need for shorter product lifecycles, the domestic automotive OEMs are now rapidly trying to re-engineer R&D processes, enlisting technologies such as product lifecycle management, digital manufacturing, and supply chain management, among others, to promote collaboration and reuse and push new car models to market faster.
Source: Managing Automation, http://www.managingautomation.com

BPM Isn't Just a Tool Set, and It Might Fill in Your Company's Information Gaps
BPM stands for business process management, as well as business performance management, depending on whom you ask. Either way, BPM can be defined as a tactic that combines software and policies with the aim of streamlining process flow among departments in order to improve communication and efficiency.
Although there are several vendors that specialize in the space, BPM is more than a set of technology tools. It can be a way to bridge departmental boundaries and fill in information gaps that might be limiting a company's effectiveness.
Source: CRM Daily, http://www.crm-daily.com

Canadian National Felt Barcodes Weren't up to the Job of Asset Tracking in Harsh Environment
When Canadian National (CN) Railway wanted to improve the tracking of the chassis its private company trading partners took with their containers, it knew RFID (radio frequency identification) was the auto-ID technology that would work best. "Barcodes wouldn't last 2 hours in our rough environment, with the vibrations from travel and containers being dropped onto the chassis, as well as the dirt and cold and water a barcode would be exposed to," says Remy Benmiloud, project manager for CN Railway. A properly designed RFID tag could, though, provided the tag overcame the challenges of being placed on a metal object and could be mounted in a secure way to withstand the environmental stresses.
Source: Integrated Solutions, http://integratedsolutionsmag.com

Business Intelligence Tools Are No Longer Just for the Big Players
An increasing number of small- and mid-market CIOs are justifying the cost of business intelligence (BI) applications to the business by showing how the insight into customer behavior these tools provide can be harnessed to drive incremental revenue to the bottom line. Also driving the adoption of BI by this market are less costly applications. BI no longer requires an expensive and complicated set of solutions to access and organize the necessary data, database and storage applications.
Source: CIO, http://cio.com

Many Companies Initially Use BPM in Financial Area, But Eventually See Many Other Advantages
Most companies start their business process management (BPM) initiatives tactically to address financial concerns, according to John Van Decker, a vice president with Gartner Inc. "But then they see an opportunity to more broadly improve their performance processes, and extract additional value out of investments they've already made. Lots of companies have implemented huge enterprise applications only to discover they still can't do planning. [BPM] takes business intelligence and puts methodologies around it, so information goes to the right people."
Source: CIO Insight, http://www.cioinsight.com

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