Daily Archives: May 23, 2010

You Can Get More By Getting Mad … If You Don’t Let It Cloud Your Judgment

A recent research summary over on Strategy + Business, which summarized a recent study at UC Berkeley, noted that you can get more by getting mad, as it lets the other party know that the deal could fall through. If the other party wants the deal, this could cause the other party to rethink the terms of the offer and come back with a better deal for you that pays more attention to your demands. However, it can also backfire because if the other party doesn’t want the deal that bad, or if the other party thinks you’re only being angry as a ploy to get a better deal (when you aren’t really angry), it could cause the other party to walk away.

In other words, it’s a tool in your toolkit, but not the centre-point of a strategy that should rely on fact-based total cost negotiations. Who cares if you save an extra 5% on unit price if the logistics costs will cripple you in the end as global freight prices rise again?

Share This on Linked In

Use Johnson’s Business Model Tips to Get Your New System Approved

A few months ago on the HBR Blogs, Mark W. Johnson published a short piece on “A New Framework for Business Models” where he reviewed Drucker‘s definition for a business model which is nothing else than a representation of how an organization makes (or intends to make) money and noted that, in addition to specifying how a company (intends) to make money, it should also specify why a customer would want to buy from you.

Why a customer would want to buy from you is answered by your customer value proposition which identifies something that your customer needs and proposes an offering that meets that need. Specifying how you’ll make money is a bit harder. To answer this, you need to analyze your:

  • Revenue Modelquantity times price
  • Cost Structuredirect costs, indirect costs, and overhead
  • Margin Modelwhat is the actual profit
  • Resource Velocityhow much throughput can you achieve

When I read this, I couldn’t help but notice how appropriate the definition is to business cases in general and how you also have to clearly answer these four questions if you expect to get funding for that new supply chain system you need. For example, if you want a new e-Sourcing system, you need to define:

  • Payback (Revenue) Modelexpected number of sourcing events times expected savings per event (on average)
  • Cost Structuresoftware, hardware, support, etc.
  • Margin Modelwhat are the real savings when the costs are taken into account
  • Resource Velocityhow many more events will you be able to handle with the new system

Otherwise, you won’t have a solid business case that clearly outlines the ROI and why you should be allowed to buy it in the first place. Furthermore, if you can’t define the resource velocity, you can’t specify how it increased your customer value proposition, which, in the case of an e-Sourcing system, is increased event throughput to help other organizational units drive savings straight to the bottom line (as e-Sourcing can also reduce HR, Marketing, and Legal costs, for example).

Share This on Linked In