iii) Reversal
eg:
Po: - cars have square wheels...............as a result of this idea, an intelligent suspension system was designed, based on a jockey wheel travelling in front of the main chassis wheel that senses differences in terrain so that the suspension system adjusts itself (Lotus)
Po: - no wars...............resulted in a global firm, which specialised in providing equipment for defence forces, looking outside to other industries to ulitise its core competencies
Po: - you are paid not to work...............make your hobbies into your business
Po: - reverse roles...............mining analysts became agri-business analysts and vice versa when the research departments of Australian Mining and Agriculture were joined
Po: - costs should be reduced by spending more money...............spending more money on fewer vendors gave Dupont leverage to obtain greater discounts
Po: - no money for advertising...............attract the attention of the news media and get free publicity by conducting outlandish activities (Greenpeace)
...............use a film called "Crackerjack" to increase youth participation in lawn bowling in Australia
...............initially Google relied on word of mouth. Furthermore, Google gained revenue by selling its search results to other search engines (including Yahoo), and from allowing advertising (text only) to be linked to search terms. Ads are limited to a handful at the top of the page and advertisers bid for the best position
Po: - the best job in the world............... a global competition offering $150,000 for working on the Great Barrier Reef for six months, writing a daily blog and feeding fish. Recruitment was driven through online job sites and display ads with a web site address that featured images of the region.
"...Within 56 days, the web site had clocked more than 6.8 million hits. The campaign attracted 43,600 new stories (on and offline) around the world and Tourism Queensland estimates that for its budget of $2.5 million, it received more than $330 million in editorial coverage..."
Fiona Carruthers, 2009
A great example of unpaid, positive publicity.
Po: - made good eyes bad.......some optometrist develop artificial eyes, which are distortions, etc, for use in theatres and movies, eg abnormal eyes for monsters
Po: - reverse traditional way of filleting fish..........traditional method was to pull the meat from the bone; this was changed to pulling the bones from the meat and is now standard practice
Po: - both parties in a legal dispute use the same lawyer...............in a divorce case both parties used the same lawyer in the hope of achieving a fair decision quicker and cheaper
Po: - sporting events are entertainment (TV).............Peter Ueberroth made the LA Olympic Games (1984) the first profitable ($225 million) Games in modern times by concentrating on selling TV rights, ie the big money came from TV. Previously, it was thought that television coverage undermined stadium attendance figures. In fact, the stadia audiences are now required to make the event look good for TV and now every country wants to host the Olympic Games!!!!! (NB Montreal lost $US1 billion in hosting the Olympic Games in 1976, and the 1980 Games held in Moscow had a different accounting system in those days!!!!!!)
NB Peter Ueberroth attended a talk by Edward deBono on lateral thinking techniques in 1975
........Bernie Ecclestone realised that the real money for Formula One races lay in TV rights, and since 1982 every race has been televised. This has created a reliable source of income for the racing teams who could now guarantee their sponsors a large television audience. By the 1990s, Formula One races were drawing an audience of 200 million; it is now the third most-watched sport worldwide, after the Olympic Games and the soccer World Cup
.........sports such as cricket, rugby (union and league), tennis, golf, etc are experimenting with the shortened version of their games to make it more entertaining. Two sports in particular have shown success with this approach, ie cricket and rugby union. For cricket, the traditional game is a 5-day test. Several decades ago a 1-day contest was introduced; included playing at night time under lights. The 1-day Cricket World Cup (2015) drew more than 1 m. spectators and around 100,000 attended the final between Australia and New Zealand at the MCG in March 2015. The one day game's rationale, ie 50 overs per side in one day, so that there was a winner and to make the game more entertaining. On the other hand, a one-day game takes too much time for some people. Thus the entrance of T20, eg Indian Premier League and Australia's Big Bash League (BBL), where each team has 20 overs starting in the late afternoon and finishing in the evening. In 2014-15 season, the average Australian audience was near 1 m. for each game on TV; the final in late January 2015 was viewed by nearly 1.5 m..Also, the total games attendance increased with around 0.85 m. - this number was once thought impossible for a domestic competition. Furthermore, around 25% of the crowd at these games are children compared with around 10% at 5-day tests; with the T20 extending the careers of successful cricketers who otherwise would have had to retire from the game. For rugby union, the traditional game is 15 a-side played in 2 halves of 40 minutes; the shortened version is 7 a-side and 2 halves of 15 minute, eg Rugby Sevens. This shortened version is now part of the Olympics for both men and women, ie Rio Olympics in 2016. Also, there is a Sevens World Series held in cities around the world the several decades. The level of professionalism in Rugby Sevens gives young players the chance to make their mark. More recently there is a further adaption to the Rugby Sevens called Viva Sevens which is a non-contact form and appeals to older rugby players, women and children. Other sports like tennis, golf, rugby league, etc our experimenting with shortened versions of their traditional games, eg rugby league 9s.
Po: - no funds are available for new school buildings...............have 2 shifts of students per school day so that the buildings are used more intensively
Po: - cars have engines on the roof...............this would result in easy access for maintenance; decrease risks of engine damage from collisions; equal weight distribution on both axles; more space in car; more airflow for cooling; trouble with transmission; higher centre of gravity (more unstable). On the other hand some disadvantages that would need to be handled include trouble with transmission; higher centre of gravity (more unstable). This leads in turn to the idea of situating the engine centrally underneath the passenger.
Po: - fuel discount from any petrol station...............certain supermarkets allow a discount from specific petrol stations if you spend over a certain amount at their store. A competitor encourages buyers to bring any recent fuel receipt to their store and will give them the equivalent discount on any purchase
Po: - target passengers who book directly with airlines...............Flight Centre (FCM) decided to target the 25% of passengers who book directly with airlines rather than compete with the 4,000 Australian travel agents who control 75% of the retail travel business. This firm has grown at more than 20% per year
Po: - strong unions increase competitiveness and profitability...............strong unions (including representation by law in management ? Germany, - and on Boards - Sweden) have not restricted the prosperity of Sweden and Germany
Po: - use computers to reduce costs...............initially computers were used to increase processing power and speed. Furthermore, access to the Internet was restricted by the cost of computers. In Brazil, a group of computer scientists was hired to construct a cheap computer, ie around $ US300 retail per unit. It was developed in 2 months
Po: - wireless Internet access...............usual access to the Internet requires a modem and expensive copper phone lines. The wireless technology developed in India eliminated the modem and phone lines; it is faster and cheaper than the traditional method of accessing the Internet
Po: - everybody has access to the Internet...............the internet and computers are too expensive for the vast majority of people in the developing world. The development of a portable, hand-held device (less than $US 200) called the Simputer with Multiple connectivity options based on free Linux software is making internet and computers accessible to most people
Po: - racism is a white person's problem...............this led to non-Indigenous people realising the need to change their mindset so that they see themselves as part of the problem rather than just part of the solution. This and the concept of the need to "walk in the shoes of others" to get an understanding and appreciation of others' viewpoints, lifestyles, beliefs, values, etc, resulted in the introduction of a strategic cultural awareness programme for Australian schools whose student population is predominantly non-Indigenous.
What's it like to walk in somebody else's shoes?
(source: Karen Ball, 2020)
Around 20 schools have been involved in the programme which includes
- an interactive workshop that puts teenage students in the "shoes of Indigenous people" for one day. After assigning them into tribal groups and explaining how Indigenous communities survived for over 50,000 years, the students are asked to role-play the traditional society. Then they are exposed to what has happened since European arrival.
- it also offers a follow-up session to reinforce the learning from the workshop
- accompanied by the introduction of an "Indigenous Elder-in-Residence" concept for the school. In one school, the elder-in-residence is an author whose book has been included in the syllabus and given as an annual award for students who most embody the values of Indigenous people, ie "caring, sharing and respecting our land, our people and our environment".
Po: - lead the customer...........Sony's approach is to lead the customer with new products rather than ask them what kinds of products they want, as customers do not know what is technically possible. An example of this is the Walkman which did not take-off until its high-quality stereo sound combined with the privacy provided via its headphones was demonstrated
Po: - study unsuccessful change attempts in organisations........this resulted in the development of a framework by John Kotter to help organisations handle change by understanding the pitfalls involved in changing organisations
Po: - sex workers run the HIV programs themselves...................in India, a Delhi-based public health scientist (Smarajit Jana) organised a project in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) that involved sex workers recognising that they are selling a service and forming a collective to ensure condom use. Rural poverty forces millions of Indian men to migrate to urban centres in search of a livelihood; there they visit brothels, get infected with the AIDS virus and take it back to their wives in the villages. After South Africa, India has the second-largest number of HIV cases in the world, ie at least 5 million. But India is too poor and health infrastructure is too weak to permit reliance on drugs. Only if prostitutes cease to acquire and transmit the virus can the epidemic be contained. Initially the project approached individual sex workers. Most were reluctant to insist on condom use as customers would go elsewhere. Unlike AIDS, starvation posed an immediate threat and the program seemed doomed. Treating AIDS as an occupational hazard resulted in the solution: a workers' cooperative. There are now 60,000 members pledged to the condom use. The collective offers bank loans, schooling for children, literacy training for adults, reproductive healthcare and cheap condoms. This has led to the virtual elimination of trafficking in women to brothels; additionally, it has kept the HIV prevalence rate down to 5% (whereas neighbouring areas without the cooperative have a prevalence rate of around 60%). Furthermore, other sexually transmitted diseases are down to 1%.
Po: - use youth to mentor elders................Jack Welch (ex CEO of GE) used young computer specialists to train and mentor his senior managers in the use of Internet, ie reverse mentoring
Po: - India outsourcing to Western firms.........the traditional pattern is for Western firms to outsource activities to India. Sunil Mittal (CEO of India's leading wireless telecommunication company, Bharti Tele-Ventures) has outsourced its entire phone operations to Western firms like Sweden's Ericsson, Germany's Siemens, Finland's Nokia and American's IBM. This has resulted in Bharti Tele-Ventures remaining India's number 1 mobile provider.
Po: - every member of staff is an individual...............many HR professionals look at the management of human resources as a procedural thing and a matter of achieving maximum efficiency in the management of people. This results in many forms, policies, procedures and rules. On the other hand, Gadens law firm, for example, treats each staff member as a complete individual who needs to be managed as an individual. This means that there are few rules, etc; with considerable emphasis on individuals taking responsibility to manage themselves and their career development. In some ways this approach is more challenging than setting rules that everyone has to follow
Po: - making a bad reference good................a senior manager lost his job. When he applied for another job, the selection committee wanted to contact his previous employer. Knowing that he would not get a favourable response, he advised the committee about this. Some members of the selection committee made contact with his previous boss and his predictions about what his previous boss would say were accurate. Despite this, he was offered the job (NB there were around 140 applicants for the position)
Po: - thinking inside the box...............normal creative thinking is associated with "thinking outside the box". By reversing the traditional creative thinking approach and thinking about existing products rather than the customer, 5 useful techniques were developed (subtraction, multiplication, division, task unification and attribute dependency). Some products developed using these techniques include Gillettte's double bladed razor, the defrosting filament in an automobile windscreen was enhanced to additionally be the radio antenna, suitcases with wheels, sun-sensitive eye glasses, etc
Po: - pay for the privilege to live like a local...............on Lord Howe Island, visitors pay luxury hotel rates to live like the locals, ie no-frills vacation.
Po: - measure luxury by environmental rather than financial credentials....................environmental credentials are redefining luxury as consumers prefer to buy environmentally-friendly products. An example is La Prairie's launch of its advanced marine biology cream ($260): arguably one of the world's most prestigious and traditional skin care companies went into partnership with the not-for-profit Ocean Future Society (run by environmental activist, Celine Cousteau, a relative of the famous underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau). Even though Celine is not a celebrity or a conventional beauty, La Prairie is able to capitalize on the Cousteau name and the Society gains access to La Prairie's vast worldwide publicity machine to promote the marine conservation work plus receives royalties on product sales
Po: - don't have a core business.........................Sir Richard Branson started his first business, ie selling records by mail order, when he was 17. Richard Branson's group of companies, under the Virgin brand, have diversified into a range of business activities that includes airlines, trains, tourism (holidays, leisure etc), communications (including mobile phones and Internet) and media (including music, television, radio and cable), Internet, financial services, health-care, space travel, renewable energy, environment, etc.. The criteria applied prior to investing in a new industry include understanding the challenges of the particular industry, assessing whether the industry needs to be turned on its head and ascertaining if there is a need for a consumer champion. In fact, Virgin's focus is on "branded venture capital", with each company being self-contained like the Japanese "keiretsu" which are held together by cross-shareholding and governed by a strong group of professional managers. The bonding power between the different groups is the Virgin brand whose mission is to provide superior customer service. The protection of the brand's reputation is paramount.
His basic message has stayed the same
"...narrative of the corporate underdog on the mission to give customers what they want..."
Michael Smith , 2017
Po: - give China what it wants................the Chinese are very keen to secure their long-term supply of natural resources, such as coal, iron ore, etc because of development needs. Most resource-base firms supplying China are only willing to give limited time contracts and discourage investment in equity and/or infrastructure. On the other hand, one Australian (Clive Palmer), who lived in China in his youth, has given the Chinese long-term contracts and encourages investment in equity and infrastructure in Australia (estimated to be more than $10 billion; this includes buying minerals upfront). This has resulted in Clive Palmer becoming one of Australia's wealthiest men in less than 5 years and becoming a politician when he won a place in Australian Federal parliament (2013).
Po: - creativity involves less...................luxury good supplier LVMH Parfums Givenchy works on the concept that the more people involved in the creative process, the more you end up with a lowest common denominator and a product designed by a committee, ie a bland product. Furthermore, they claim that market research has limited value for luxury goods as market research is about consensus, not creativity.
They start with the people, not strategy nor organisational structure, ie
"...recruit people with specific strengths or profiles and then they change the organisation to make it fit with these people..."
Alain Lorenzo as quoted by Marguerite Winter, 2010
They encourage minimal creative interference, ie keep the number of people involved to a minimum. The organisation is a federation of independent companies as opposed to more integrated groups like Proctor and Gamble or L'Oreal.
The risk of this approach is that they end up with something original and creative but not commercial.
Furthermore, they stress the idea of longevity (owing to their products' differences and originality) targeting a "select" customer base, rather than a quick sales hype with mass appeal that becomes a short-term fad.
In testing the market, they use "trial by error" tactic, ie they launch a new product to a handful of countries to test the market reaction. This allows time to fine-tune things before going global and creates demand in countries not selected for the trial, ie tease them.
Po: - work on people's strengths...................normally to help staff performance we give training that focuses on improving their weaknesses. Yet people like to work on their strengths and perform best this way. In fact many successful organisations work on people's strengths and match staff up who have complementary skills, ie one person's strengths are matched or paired with another's weaknesses, etc. Furthermore, some powerful techniques, like Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Psychology, etc, focus on the strengths of an organisation/individual rather than areas that are seen as negatives.
Po: - sell to the poor...............traditionally western firms focus their selling on the top-income earners. On the other hand, it is estimated that there are 4 billion poor people world-wide who spend around $US 5 trillion annually; imagine if this group "spent a little more"!!!! As a result of this analysis, firms like Phillips in India increased its focus on selling to the poor owing to the sheer numbers of potential customers. It uses India to test products aimed at the poor, eg
- a hand-cranked radio ($5 each) which sold 900,000 units;
- a low-pollution wood-burning stove as 1.6 million people die each year from cooking fires
- out-fitted a van with simple medical diagnostic equipment that travels to the rural villagers. The data is sent via satellite to hospitals in the city where specialists make the diagnosis, etc. Thus the rural villagers can get top-tier medical service without leaving the village
(NB This is additional to the computer programs that are developed in India for products like TV, DVD players, cell phones, coffee-makers, etc)
Po: - using the Internet to create aspiration and exclusivity for luxury brands.......................at first glance, it would appear that Internet and social media would work against luxury brands as they aim for aspiration and exclusivity while social media aims for the mass market. But luxury brands like Burberry, Tiffany & Co. Jimmy Choo & OrotonGroup are including social media as a key plank in their strategy to engage with consumers, ie as a way to create
- authentic and real-time dialogues and conversations with potential customers, especially in emerging markets like China and Brazil whose target citizens are technology-savvy and want to display their wealth
- elite communities for their brands on the Internet
- opportunities to share an image/photo of yourself with the brand
Burberry claims (Carrie Lafrenz, 2012) it had a 21% increase in last quarter sales revenue in 2011 after implementing a social media strategy. According to CEO Angela Ahrendts, social media helped drive customer engagement, enhance retail disciplines and improved operational effectiveness while strengthening brand momentum. Burberry is the world's most successful fashion brand on social media networks, with 11.1 million Facebook fans, 825,000+ Twitter followers and 11.8 million YouTube viewings.
Po: - travel to Pacific Islands to lose weight...............a consultant/trainer who regularly travels to work in the Pacific Islands was worried about putting on weight as Islanders have large appetites and the venues he works at supply ample servings of food. He found that by reducing his number of meals from 3 to 2 per day, he lost weight!!!!!!
Po: - restricting access increases numbers...............people seeing popular exhibitions at galleries/ museums, etc often have to wait hours in queues and/or view a particular artifact/painting, etc across a group several deep. To handle this, museums/galleries, etc are selling tickets that allow entry on specific days and times so that a finite number of visitors is present at any one time. This is providing certainty for visitors to the establishment, ie no queues, and able to view items with a minimal number of other visitors. It helps with crowd control and allows for a better experience for the visitor, ie no queues, etc. As most of these timed tickets are purchased online, it is also providing useful information for marketing
Po: - trade, not aid, to handle poverty...............in a couple of decades China has gone from a Maoist backwater to the world's second-largest, fastest-growing major economy. China's policies, like the "Great Leap Forward" (1950s) and "Cultural Revolution" (late 1960s & early 70s), caused years of internal economic stagnation. China's rapid economic development did not start until the late 1970's when Deng Xiaoping returned to political power after Mao Zeding's death (1976). Deng and his allies introduced economic reforms, like
- market incentives (first in agriculture and then industry) that gave firms greater authority to make own production decisions, prices to reflect supply and demand conditions (rather than being determined by the government) and reduced state regulation in the economy. As a result, agricultural productivity skyrocketed and made labour available for industrial development. Also, privatisation started in the mid-1990s;
- integration with the international community by encouraging international trade (including foreign investment and technology). As a result, China has established successful trading relationships with most countries, especially the developed countries, and is now the world's 2nd largest economy (based on GDP) after USA;
- revitalising higher education
plus removing "leftist" supporters from positions of power, like the pro-Cultural Revolution leadership (Gang of 4)
The Chinese government approach shifted focus from class struggle to economic modernisation. They believed that significant economic growth was achievable without endangering political control.
Over 3 decades, it is estimated that around 500 million Chinese have been "pulled out of poverty" by this approach, ie
"...Never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time..."
Laurence Chandy as quoted by Ambrose Evans- Pritchard, 2014
"...the efficacy of Chinese authoritarianism - its efficiency in driving growth................ open doors to globalisation while keeping a lid on unwelcome ideas..."
Susanne Nossell 2018
Yet most other developing countries that rely on aid (multi- or bi-lateral) as a basis for lifting people out of poverty do not share the success of China. Furthermore, it has been claimed (Daron Acemoglu et al, 2012) that less than 20% of aid reaches the target audience, ie
"...There are dozens of ongoing fraud investigations into charges of UN and local officials siphoning off aid money. But most of the waste resulting from foreign aid is not fraud, just incompetence or even worse: simply business as usual for aid organisations......despite this unflattering track record of development aid, foreign aid is one of the most popular policies that Western governments, international organisations, such as the United Nations, and NGOs of different ilk recommend as a way of combating poverty around the world. And of course, the cycle of the failure of foreign aid repeats itself over and over again. The idea that rich Western countries should provide large amounts of development aid in order to solve the problems of poverty in sub-Sahara Africa, Caribbean, Central America and Southeast Asia is based on an incorrect understanding of what causes poverty..."
Daron Acemoglu et al, 2012
Po: - the more money one accumulates, the less one needs to pay for things...............even though wealthy customers have the money to pay for experiences, luxury brands are going to great lengths to keep customers loyal. They are offering their loyal customers unique, upmarket, free experiences like those offered by Audi's Lifestyle Experience (to become a member you need to buy a car worth over $150,000). The free experiences include sailing masterclass with London gold-medal-winning Olympian Michael Page, a catered extravaganza at Sydney Theatre Company in the presence of actor Richard Roxburgh, etc. The aim of the exercise is to encourage customer loyalty and ensure future purchasing decisions are swayed in the brand's favour
Melinda O'Rourke as quoted by Katarina Kroslakova, 2014
Po: - lower prices to make more money ..................................the traditional view is that by lowering prices, margins fall and result in less profit per item sold; to counter this loss of profit, there must be a significant increase in sales. Successful firms, like Walmart, Amazon, Uber, etc have taken a contrary view, ie cheaper prices increases customer numbers and loyalty. This strategy in the long term returns more total profit and cash flow to the firm, especially if demand is highly elastic, ie the lower the price, the demand increases dramatically. This also involves delivering the highest possible value to customers by selling at the lowest possible prices. Uber has modified this concept to its advantage by increasing driver utilisation, ie the number of rides per hour for a driver. The aim was to lower the price for the passengers while increase earnings for the driver and better cash flow for Uber. At the same time, the lower fares would lead to more demand and even higher utilisation. Under "UberPool", Uber has a single driver pick up, en route, several passengers who are heading in the same direction, ie ride sharing with each driver averaging more than a single passenger per trip. By doing this everyone wins, ie driver makes more money, passengers pay lower fares and Uber increases turnover.
.................................the virtuous double loop strategy used by Woolworths ( Australia) when Roger Corbett was CEO, ie
"...reinvesting cost savings and productivity gains into reducing grocery prices to drive volume and sales. This fuelled almost a decade of double digit profit growth for Woollies starting in 2000..."
Simon Evans et al, 2015
Po: - taxis are buses ................................. Under "UberPool", a single car is like a bus, ie collecting and dropping passengers who travel in the same direction, eg ride-sharing (each driver averaging more than a single passenger per trip). This has resulted in behavioural changes with many passengers travelling the same route regularly maybe 5 days a week. By doing this everyone wins, ie the driver makes more money, passengers pay lower fares and Uber increases turnover.
Po: - there is no stability without volatility ...................................................... the best indicator of the country's future stability is not past stability but moderate volatility in the relatively recent past . Dictatorships, like Saudi Arabia and Syria, that lack volatility face a greater risk of chaos than countries like Italy, which has been in a state of continual political turmoil since World War II . This has led to the theory of fragility (Nassim Nicolas Taleb et al). Need to study how systems can handle disorder, ie how fragile they are. Some systems can sustain an extraordinary amount of stress , while others fall apart at the onset of slightest trouble. Things that are fragile do not like variability, volatility, stress, chaos and random events which cause them to either gain little or suffer. Things that are fragile respond to shock in a non-linear fashion, eg the harm from a 10 m fall is no way equal to 10 times the harm from a 1 m fall; the fall in the price of oil of $30 is much more than twice as harmful for oil producing countries as a $15 drop. This theory is applicable to organisations and is linked to creating the sense of urgency required in effective change management. There are 5 principal sources of fragility, ie
i) centralised controlling system , eg a dominating corporate headquarters, centralised decision-making, etc that is aimed to improve the efficiency and stability, etc. On the other hand, centralisation contributes to fragility even though it gives the appearance of reducing deviations from the normal. It magnifies the consequences if these deviations occur as it concentrates them all in other more severe episodes, which are disproportionately more harmful than a cumulative small variations; centralisation decreases local risks but at the price of increasing systematic risks; there is an inability to handle diversity that adds to the fragility, ie those that suppress differing than those at encouraging divergent views; it is best not to integrate but rather tolerate and encourage differing views, ie encourage autonomous units)
ii) lack of diversity, ie products/services, eg need to be aware of reliance on single/few products/services, even though they provide a competitive advantage; specialisation makes an organisation more vulnerable to the impact of random events, ie the loss of a single source of income can have a dramatic impact
iii) excessive debt and leverage, eg have borrowed too much money; debt is perhaps the single most critical source of fragility
iv) lack of variability, eg need to be careful of groupthink; need to encourage divergent views; management should not select replacements who are clones of themselves; disperse decision-making power as widely as possible
v) no history of surviving past shocks, eg need to have survived, and recovered from, a worse case scenario, ie experience chaos without disintegrating, in the recent past; this experience can reveal hidden strengths and involve gaining from disorder, so that the shocks are educational and allowing the organisation to experience growth; otherwise become too complacent, risk averse , etc .
"...the idea is analogous to child rearing: parents want to protect their children from truly serious shocks that they might not survive but should not want to shelter them from the challenges of life that make them tougher..."
Nassim Nicolas Taleb et al, 2015
Po: - pharmacists become doctors ..................................................... in Australia, health is the second biggest area of government spending after welfare . The Pharmacy Guild of Australia (pharmacists' political lobby group) is keen to expand its role in health care. Recently they have successfully administrated influenza vaccine at no cost to the government; with patients paying about $25 for the service and vaccine; this trial has been extended to whooping cough and measles injections for adults. Pharmacists are under financial pressure with
- the big selling brand name drugs, such as Lipitor (anti-cholesterol), being replaced by cheaper generic medicine
- government reforms to reduce the cost of subsidised generic medicines.
- the rise of discount pharmacy companies, like Chemist Warehouse, which offer discounts on prescription medicines (Jessica Gardner & Joanna Heath, 2015)
It is estimated the pharmacists' net annual profit will fall by $90,000. That is why they want to move up the healthcare value chain. On the other hand, the doctors (using their political lobby group, AMA) are not in favour of pharmacists broadening their responsibility and thus eroding doctors' income; the doctors argue that this expansion of pharmacists' roles jeopardises patient safety.
Po: - agender............................................unisex fashions that are free of any gender definition, ie wear whatever you want. This is sometimes called androgny (both male and female characteristics). garments have neither male or female focus eg denim jeans, T-shirts, etc
Po: - staff are owners.........................traditionally staff do not own equity in the firm they work for; at best they are minority shareholders. On the other hand, there are productivity benefits from having staff as owner of a company, including the ability to plan long-term, creates staff alignment and motivation, etc. Some of the reasons for staff ownership include owners wanting to exit the business and sell the business to their staff, changing the master-servant relationship between owners/bosses and staff, reduces the need to bring in outside investors who may have different agendas for the firm's future (eg short-term capital gain on their investment), reduces the need to borrow money, etc. But issues that may need addressing include what happens to the shares when a staff member leaves the firm, valuing the firm when staff are purchasing/selling equity, financing staff equity purchases, criteria of allocating shares to different staff members like length of employment with the firm, seniority, etc, the firm's profit and dividend distribution in boom-bust cycles (especially in down cycles), management decisions around allocation of resources to items like research and development, salaries, etc.
Po: - innovation with constraints................................. people are given a space to innovate but have a constraint like time or money or people, etc. These type of constraints put additional pressure on people to think differently about the problem; more likely to come up with a creative solution. Atlassian (an Australian computer software company that was floated on US stock exchange for around US$ 5 b. in late 2015), conducts an in-house programming competition (hackathon) with a time constraint, ie 24 hours to produce something. It is used to create new products, improve existing products, improve processes.
"...if you got unlimited time, budget and manpower...... companies that have that rarely produce good things..."
Mike Cannon-Brooks as quoted by Paul Smith, 2014a
Po: - furniture buyers assemble their own products.............................. buyers pick up furniture components in a flatpack from a large warehouse and assemble the products themselves in their home. This is what IKEA introduced in the 1960s
Po: - airlines rent engines.................................airlines don't buy engines for their airplanes but pay for every hour an engine runs. This is how Rolls-Royce transformed itself from a money-losing British manufacturer into a service firm that is now one of the dominant providers of larger jet engines
Po: - voice calls are free worldwide..............................in 2003 Skype launched a service that allowed free voice calling via the Internet. In 5 years Skype had acquired 400m registered users who collectively have made 100 b free calls
Po: - car manufacturers don't sell cars............... in 2008, Daimler launched car2go which had a fleet of vehicles that allowed users to pick up and drop off cars anywhere in the German city of Ulm; users pay by the minute used
Po: - individuals borrow money from each other................................ in 2005, UK-based Zopa launched a peer-to-peer lending platform on the Internet that bypass the banks as lenders
Po: - every villager has access to a phone........................................Grameenphone in partnership with micro-finance institution Grameen bank aimed to achieve this in Bangladesh, which had one of the world's lowest tele-density rates. In 2010, Grameenphone was one of Bangladesh's largest taxpayers.
Po: - no sales department.......................................... traditionally firms have sales as an important part of marketing. In the digital age, software firms, like Atlassian and Slack, do not have sales departments. They rely upon word-of-mouth and contacts. They regard research and development as more important. A more traditional firm like Jayco (manufacturers of caravans) has more people in research and development than in sales
Po: - people are their own bosses.........................................this means that people are able to choose how they work, ie flexibility like working from home and/or hours that suit, etc. This has resulted broadening the range of people available to work including mothers, fathers, people in retirement transition, students, elite athletes, etc plus substantial savings in office space and costs, etc.. This approach has increased performance/productivity beyond expectations by encouraging collaborative working relationships where work expectations and guidelines are agreed upon. In some organisations, flexible workers become the most efficient. For example, Woolworths (an Australian retailer employing around 200,000 staff) has increased productivity and retained employees through flexible work, job redesign and leave arrangements including paid maternity leave, retention strategies, job sharing, etc. This approach is very effective in situations of extra hours needed to handle high demand, such as natural disasters, etc. For example, the Brisbane office of Suncorp (Australian bank with around 16,000 staff) was flooded in 2011, staff working from home were able to handle the high demand from customers and to minimise disruptions. However, legally in some countries, like Australia, the employer is liable for any costs incurred when a home-based worker is injured.
Po: - fashion designer links with glasses supplier........ Alex Perry (fashion designer) links with Specsavers (eyewear suppliers) to design and sell fashionable, affordable glasses. This association has increased his female customer base by around 50% as they sold 1.2 m. pairs of glasses. He is doing a similar thing with branded hotels.
Po: - open oysters like popping the cork out of the champagne bottle....................................traditionally opening an oyster, ie shucking, is difficult. By shaving a bit of calcium carbonate off the side of the shell and then sealing the cavity with wax to keep juices in and the oyster alive has resulted in a streamlined, easy-to -open oyster. Buyers can simply remove the wax, insert a good knife into the cavity to crack open the oyster ready for eating as nature intended. An added benefit is that the wax seal can be branded to identify where the oyster came from. (Kendall Hill, 2016)
Po: stop research and analyse clinical data..........................................................................it has been claimed that there would be a better return from analysing current clinical data than from continuing research. Money should be spent on synthesising, summarising and disseminating the medical knowledge we already have so that health professionals can help their patients make properly informed treatment choices
Po: - don't target traditional industry audience........................Cirque du Soleil (non-traditional circus business starting in Canada). This organisation successfully modified the traditional elements of the circus business, eg
- it eliminated costly elements like animals (maintenance, animal rights issues, etc) and star performers
- it added other elements like theme, artistic atmosphere & refined music
- it combines elements from circus, theatre and opera, ie it broadened its appeal to theatre-goers and other adults seeking sophisticated entertainment rather than targeting the traditional circus audience of families
Based on the above, it was able to substantially raise ticket prices.