Forbes recently released the list of the 100 most powerful women in the world, and although NZ didn’t make the cut, our closet ally [and rival] Australia proudly laid claim to CEO of Westpac Trust Gail Kelly. At #18, Ms Kelly ranked higher than US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, talk show host Oprah Winfrey and the Queen, according to Forbes magazine.

The Top 10 include:

1. Angela Merkel, Chancellor, Germany 
2. Sheila Bair, chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp,  US 
3. Indra Nooyi, chief executive, PepsiCo,  US 
4. Cynthia Carroll, chief executive, Anglo American, UK 
5. Ho Ching, chief executive, Temasek,  Singapore 
6. Irene Rosenfeld, chief executive, Kraft Foods,  US 
7. Ellen Kullman, chief executive, DuPont,  US 
8. Angela Braly, chief executive, WellPoint,  US 
9. Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive, Areva, France 
10. Lynn Elsenhans Chief executive, Sunoco  US

The three criteria used to assess each candidate were ”public profile through worldwide media mentions, professional accomplishments and economic influence”.

For the full article and list

The Supreme Court’s decision to ban 10 former directors of James Hardie symbolically tightens the vice or board members, executives and non-executive directors.

Dishing out bans and fines at the “upper end of expectations” has sent a loud and clear reminder to all those in senior corporate positions that activities viewed as “serious and flagrant breaches of duty as directors” will not be tolerated. The James Hardie Group were found to have negligently made misleading statements in a deliberate attempt to influence the market in respect to attendant asbestos claims. The Judge said the if the Directors did not support a draft press release that contained details of a new compensation trust would be ”fully funded” and offered ”certainty” to claimants suffering from asbestos diseases, then they should have complained about such statements. During the proceedings the directors claimed they had either not read the release or had no recollection of reading, the press release. Such collective denial of recollection was not accepted as genuine by the Courts.

However, the Australian Institute of Company Directors does not believe the decision and the penalties attached will make it more difficult for companies to attract top level board candidates., claiming that existing law already provides for the duty to act honestly and disclose material information to the market. The judgment is seen simply as upholding existing law, rather than setting the foundation for new ones.

For an impressive case study on how social media has been used to drive a full marketing campaign – check out this presentation on Barak Obamas presidential campaign.

This 2 hour presentation was made by Igor Beuker, to 150 marketers at the SRM Guru meeting 2009 in Amsterdam. Obama “brand interaction strategy” was a masterpiece of integrating old school semantics with new world technology.

Credit must also go to Paul van Veenendaal who compiled the research for this huge slide deck and of course to Barack Obama and his campaign team.

It interest me how many companies claim to have the ‘customer’ as the centre of their business strategy, then still retain outdated revenue focused segmentation. Most businesses segment their base by Consumer, SME and Corporate. Some may go as far as segementing their Consumer base down to High/Medium/Low revenue potential, and measuring customer value in terms of Average Revenue Per Unit [ARPU].

Yet both this segmentation and performance reporting are revenue rather than customer focused. One of the best ways to drive more insight into your customers, and the potential your business has to engage with them in more meaningful [and more profitable] ways is to change both the segmentation and the performance reporting.

For example, consider all the different types of users for your product. They will typically fall into groups such as:

• Innovation leaders
• Fashion followers
• Basic or Advanced Users in terms of the depth of features they use
• Trade workers
• Office workers
• Executive
• Travelling businessmen
• Sports players and outdoors enthusiasts

and so on

Each of these groups will likely use your technology in different ways. Instead of just focusing on how new technology allows you to advance the feature set of your products, consider the specific needs of each user group. Getting ahead of their game, helps you get ahead of yours. And in turn, the more you meet the future needs of your customers, the more likely they are to be in meeting your future needs of a lifetime profitable relationship.

In a recent post ‘ The paradox of the middle of the market’ by marketing legend Seth Godin he talks about the appeal of targeting the ‘geek layer’ and the missed opportunity in the mid market. The mid market represents the mass market, yet so often we are tempted to develop products and services that out feature the innovation of our competitors, and in essence move our product appeal away from the mid-market, who are more interested in the banal, boring, but reliable. Whilst the mid market are harder to reach [they don't do blogs, twitter or social networking], they do represent those who are seeking the core capability of your product portfolio.

Whilst the market leaders will queue to get the latest smartphone or laptop, and readily broadcast their opinions on their latest purchases, they are also the more difficult to convert into a broader product line.

So are we being too tempted by the ‘bright shiny’ syndrome to pimp up our products beyond the appeal of our greatest market? What do you think?

The article ‘So Much for the Cheap ‘China Price’ provides an interesting and surprising look at how competitive China remains as an outsource manufacturers.

It appears there “significant hidden costs to having supply lines that extend to China, with the “total cost of ownership.” reducing from the once 40% below U.S. cost to 5.5% by the end of 2008. Hardly enough to warrant the hassle of manufacturing halfway around the world.

The surprising is the cost comparison with Mexico. In 2006, the total cost of making goods in China was about 5% cheaper than in Mexico. Today, China is around 20% more expensive, widening the cost advantage against manufacturing in USA form 16% a few years ago to 25% now.

It seems that outsourcing manufacturing to China is now no longer the ‘no-brainer’ it once was. With sharp moves in currency [11% since 2005] and labor costs [up 7% to 8% a year] and the stripping away by Beijing of tax breaks for exporters the balance of economic gain has moved dramatically.

However, in very labor intensive products, such as toys and apparel, the advantages are still favorable.

China has also retained its advantages consumer-electronics and PC manufacturing, unrivaled in its supply of base of parts and materials, making it somewhat more sticky as a supply chain.

Production of high-end electronics is starting to return to Mexico, closer to U.S. customers, but in spite of the change in state of play, most US manufacturers are resisting making major changes, with capital expenditure to relocate just not on the budget.

Read full article

I don’t normally comment in the area of HR, as it is not my field of expertise [as you will probably gather from my warped interpretation below], but since I am focused on performance overall, I found the results of a recent Accenture survey worthy of comment.

I thought the recent ‘Untapped Potential’ survey completed by Accenture highlighted some interesting facts.

The survey identified that of the “3,600 professionals from medium to large organizations in 18 countries across Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Africa” – 46 percent of women and 49 percent of men feld they were not significantly challenged in their current roles, in spite of being confident of their skills and capabilities.

Okay – that’s interesting in itself, but the bit I found most interesting was the text between the lines.

In spite of the current economic challenges, very few respondents in Western nations have made an effort to expand their skills to remain competitive.

• Netherlands – 22%
• Austria – 35%
• Norway – 35%
• Brazin – 86%
• China – 79%
• India – 70%
• Italy – 74%

In United States, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria it was reported that women were more likely than men to ask their superiors for new challenges.

• USA – 70% women; 48% men
• Russia – 57% women; 44% men

Yet interestingly, more men asked for pay raises

• USA – 56% men; 48% women
• Russia – 42% men; 37% women

Another interesting outcome was that older generation baby boomers actually felt more secure in their jobs than Gen X and Gen Y respondents.

So let’s take a high level view of these results. It is quite obvious that productivity is generally significantly lower than it should be. It is likely that many tasks being done by highly qualified people would be better off being automated, thus releasing human resources for more challenging activities. And in spite of men being more challenged with their roles than women – they are the ones asking for a pay rise! Does this indicate that the men have all the more challenging roles [well, we know that is typically true], but it also shows that women are being under valued and under utilised. I guess there is no surprises there either.

The item I found most interesting is the significant variance between countries, and likely cultures for taking responsiblity for upskilling oneself to make oneself more attractive in the job market.

I just have this niggling sneaky suspicion that there are a lot of lazy men just cruising through their jobs, demanding more than they deserve and expecting the company to be responsible for their ongoing career development.

By hey – I could be totally wrong. I would be very interesting to hear from you as to your interpretation of these findings. You can find the full survey report here.

In my last post ‘Make an Impact Every Day’ we were focusing on daytight cycles of events. But new media has pushed this cycle to meer minutes and seconds. Just what impact is this having on businesses?

As we now accept corporate transparency as a key compliance requirement, we have to ask ourselves just how far we should go. It seems we don’t get the choice, as the market is driving the pace.

Just a few years ago, receiving a monthly newsletter along with your monthly invoice was engaging for customers to keep up with what was happening inside the corporate walls of their suppliers. The Blogs reduced that cycle down to a few days. Twitter has blasted through this time lag to expose the happenings inside corporates to near real time. Is this a good thing?

Whilst I am the first to advocate closer communication with your customers, Twitter does provide a very public bathroom wall for disgruntled employees and over excited whistle blowers. When things go awry, emotions rather than logic typically drive the first response actions. Over the following few hours, logic starts to prevail and most organizations recognize that they are best to be public with the truth before the litany of lies takes over. As most PR professionals recognize – it is not what you say, rather how you say it that saves the day.

With reputations traveling across the globe in milliseconds – PR is moving into a new realm. They can no longer rely on the few hours to deadline of newspapers and magazines, but must hit the Internet before the first Twitter.

Twitter is providing a platform for real time broadcasting of anything concerning organisations, people, brands, events and issues.

On the positive side, Twitter is proving a fast feedback system for marketers; very effectively communicating people’s immediate thoughts and reactions that fluidly shape reputations and brands. Moving on from organized focus groups, Twitter is providing a global focus group any time, any day.

Innovative companies have even used Twitter as an event platform. Once recent event, hosted by a multinational company attracted over 3000 individual ‘Tweets’ in one week-end.

The Twitter community is fast to engage, but learning to adapt to this change is a challenge for most companies already struggling with the pace of the digital age.

There are times when I feel like a complete fraud – I have been so tied up finishing my latest book Sell More And Have Your Customers Love You For It that I completely abandoned the very essence of what the book is about – making meaningful contact with your prospects and customers that is worthwhile to both of you.

So by way of apology for not having written a single post on this blog for over a month, I have found a delightful message that reminded me how important you all were……and I promise to do better.

So often we we are driven to be focused on the big strategic objectives against which our performance is measured, that it is easy to forget that often it is the small things that have the biggest impact. Trying to win over the minds of your prospects is about connecting with them at a meaningful level, and before you try to connect with them as prospects, connect with them as humans. I am not talking about the schmoozing that is so obvious and so belittling for both your prospect and yourself, but by adopting an attitude of doing small things every day, at the most inconvenient times, to help someone. Small things mean a lot. This short inspiring video captures the intent of this concept perfectly.
[2:42min]

And watch out on Amazon for Sell More – it is due to appear any day now.

It is no surprise that companies that concentrate on their core business are significantly better off during the current downturn. Such companies have strategies around sustainable value creation, maintainging at least a 5.5% real growth rate.

Typically such companies both perform better during times of expansion and recover faster from economic slumps. Most enjoyed an average net profit margins of around 6.5% following the 2002 recession, where competitors struggled to reach 1% during the same period.

If you want a simple, quick appraisal of your companies core strength, take this quick [but revealing] free online assessment. You also get a benchmark view of your performance compared to other companies that have taken the test.