Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Are You Cued In To Cultural Intelligence?

Given that I just launched a nine-part series on Overcoming Cultural Differences in International Trade, edited by none other than Dick Locke, I was pleased to see the issue of cultural intelligence getting some recognition in this recent article in Industry Week on “Are You Cued into Cultural Intelligence”.

The article starts off by noting that in a global economy, it’s a mistake to assume that negotiation strategies are a one-size- fits-all proposition and that while negotiation within the dominant American culture seems to be that you are more well-respected if you cut to the chase, say what we are here to talk about, get down to brass tacks, figure out if this is a good deal for both of us and move on, if you begin with that approach in Japan, and didn’t first have a meal, or perhaps even do some sightseeing together, you might be behind in terms of even having a chance to negotiate a deal. Which is very true, but more on Japan in a later post.

The author then summarizes David Livermore’s four-stage plan for developing the cultural intelligence needed to lead abroad, which consists of:

  • Drive
    you need to be receptive to cross-cultural experiences
  • Knowledge
    you need to understand a culture’s impact on people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours
  • Strategy
    you need to understand the best way to take your knowledge and apply that knowledge
  • Action
    you need to know when to adjust your behaviour to a cross-cultural setting

Which is spot on, but notice the important of knowledge and how it underlies strategy and action. So stay tuned for the coming posts in the nine-part series on Overcoming Cultural Differences in International Trade. They just might get you one step closer.

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Game Changers or Business As Usual?

Supply Chain Digest recently reviewed Kate Vitadek & J. Paul Dittman’s full report on “Supply Chain Game Changers: A Practitioner’s Guide for Driving Competitive Advantage within Your Supply Chain”. After reviewing the top ten list, I’m not sure if they are “game changers” or “business as usual” because I don’t see the difference between this list and a list of the top ten issues that have been facing modern supply chains for the last few years.

In brief, the list is:

  • The Mandate for Measurement
  • Supply Chain Collaboration
  • Lean/Six Sigma Applied to the Supply Chain
  • Managing Complexity
  • Supply Chain Technology
  • Network Optimization
  • Global Supply Chain Implications
  • Sustainability
  • Risk Management
  • Managing Out Costs and Working Capital

So, what do you think? Game changers? Day to Day Issues? or Both?

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Social Media May Increase Awareness, But Will It Increase Acumen?

In a recent article in Manufacturing & Logistics IT from i2 SCL contributors on Social Marketing & Supply Chain Management: The Next Consumer Data Challenge and Opportunity, the authors quote a recent Forrester Research report that states that three of four adults who go online in the US are leveraging social content on a regular basis and state that it’s a resounding yes that retailers and consumer product companies can leverage these tools and the demand signals they render to better run their supply chains.

I’m not sure I entirely agree. First of all, the concept of “social intelligence” is still much more nebulous than “business intelligence”, which is still quite nebulous and not always a successful endeavour (and, historically, BI projects are famous for low success rates, high costs, and time overruns). How can you leverage what you don’t understand?

Secondly, the social media marketplace is scattered. Some of your customers will be on MySpace, some on Facebook, some on Linked-in, some on Twitter, some on Ning, and some on dozens of other sites. Unless you can be everywhere, you could be missing a sizeable portion of your customer base. And even if you are, that’s still only 75% of on-line customers. What about the rest?

Thirdly, most users are quiet unless they have something to gripe about. So while you’ll likely have no problems getting feedback on everything your customers don’t like, you’ll likely have limited feedback on what they like and your surveys will be skewed. That doesn’t make for good decision making.

Any differing opinions?

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Dude! I got a Debt!

Forgive me for this bad play on words, but I just couldn’t help it after reading this story in a recent edition of eWeek on how “N.C. Wants Dell to Repay Incentives for Closing Plant”. It seems that Dell received over $300 Million in tax breaks and other incentives in exchange for opening its plant in Winston-Salem North Carolina 4 years ago and didn’t take that into account when they decided to close the plant. Now, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue is determined to ensure that the state gets “every red cent back that Dell has received”.

Just goes to show that you shouldn’t make any major supply chain decisions before you do a total cost model and consider all of the current, and future, implications of your decision.

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Will Poor Spend Management Be The End of Harvard?

Back in August, after reading Nina Munk’s Hard Times at Harvard article in Vanity Fair, I asked if Poor Spend Management Will Be The End of the Ivy League after Harvard’s endowment lost a whopping 8 Billion in the first four months of its last finical year. This amount, which is greater than the entire endowment of Columbia University (at 7.1 Billion) put Harvard in dire straits, especially since Harvard’s President warned of an expected 30%, or 11.1 Billion, loss. (The actual loss was about 11 Billion, and the full report can be found on the Harvard Web Site.)

Then I read this article over the weekend, which noted that Harvard University lost 1.8 Billion alone from the cash account it uses for daily operations through investments in high-risk vehicles (which included stocks, hedge funds, and risky assets), I started to wonder if poor spend management is going to spell the end of Harvard, at least we know it. However, what I really want to know is how could Harvard, with the famed Harvard Business School and Harvard Business Review, be so stupid? Even the dumbest companies know that, unless you have more than three months of operating capital, you keep your daily operations cash in savings accounts, and even if you have more than three months, you only invest it in low risk investments like money-market mutual funds which have a long history of slow and gradual changes (and not high risk stocks that can plummet overnight)!

All I can say is that I’m at a loss for words! Anyone want to chime in?