I hate to big note myself, but I was recently awarded the Bronze runner up trophy for the pursuit of Excellence by the US based Institute of Excellence. At the Awards dinner in New York, I said to a standing ovation: “Let no goal overarch the pursuit of excellence, it is by by pursuing excellence, that excellence is pursued.
Yesterday I attended the UTS EMBA & MB Reunion 2000 – 2010 (I graduated in 2005), where the keynote address was given by Phil Ruthven, the founder and chairman of IBISWORLD, an industry intelligence company. What an interesting and amusing fellow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a presentation jam packed with so many insights, that was also so interesting. I just wanted to share one slide from the presentation, and that was the slide that dealt with IBIS’s analysis of what the most successful business are doing. Interestingly, as much as this is based on research, it’s also intuitively true.
1. They focus on single industries, not diversify
2. They position as a major, niche or ultra-niche for dominance
3. They pursue unique intellectual property (directly or as a franchisee).
4. They outsource non-core activities
5. They jettison passive (“hard”) assets
6. They have prudent and expansionary financial management
7. They plan from the outside-in not the inside-out
8. They are industry lifecycle responsive
9. They emulate world best practice (and globalise if possible)
10. They develop strategic alliances.
11. They develop unique organisational cultures.
12. They lead first and manage second.
Over the past few months friends, family members and business associates have asked me – what caused the global credit crisis?
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
I recently came across the above video, which does a much better job of explaining how the global credit crisis arose than I ever could.
Of course what it all boils down to at the end of the day was that a lot of easy money went into creating dodgy financial products that seemed to good to be true, oh, because they were.
Well, we’re all now paying for it, though everyone seems to be forgetting that the boom was good while it lasted, even if what underpinned by a house of cards.