Saturday, June 15, 2013

Cherish Your Network


 Basic Business Cents

What is your most valuable asset? Is it your faith, love, family, friends, or customers? A case can be made that it is all of the above and it is called your network.
A dictionary definition of network is:  “A group or system of interconnected people or things: a trade network, a group of people who exchange information, contacts, and experience for professional or social purposes: a support network.”
Your network is greater than a business network, but since this is a business column, let’s look at your network and talk about how to build, nurture, and protect it from a business perspective.

One of my favorite sayings is, “It doesn’t make any difference when you start as long as you start now!” Make sure you get proper contact information, telephone number (work and mobile), email address, and address from people you encounter and respect. Both phone numbers are important because people often change work locations but may maintain the same mobile number.

A portable business card scanner is useful to collect this information in an electronic address book. Business cards are easily lost, business card files become unwieldy in time, and any kind of manual system is burdensome, so an electronic address book is a must. Do not limit your entries to people who are friends or people who you know well but include people who will recognize your name and may be in a position to help some day. This sounds a little crass but it is important.

To ensure your network stays current it needs to be nourished. Touch base periodically with information or content, which you think might be relevant and interesting to your contact list. A word of caution is to not become a pest or bore, use good judgment. Direct, one-on-one contact is usually much better than mass distribution. Popular electronic mass software programs are being misused by so many people that key people on your list may be tuning out on them.

Remember this network list is a valued treasure and it must be protected. Make sure you have it backed up, preferably in a separate location so both copies will not be destroyed by an act of nature or other catastrophe. It is important that you maintain your integrity and reputation so people will want to help you when needed. It can be helpful if you help others along the way because those people may be in a position to help you some day. With electronic communications, the world today is becoming very small and news travels fast.

Continue relentlessly, forever to build, nurture, and protect your personal network and it will prove to be your most treasured asset.


Monday, June 10, 2013

Exercise Critical Reading/Listening



Do you believe everything you read in the newspapers? In news magazines? In emails? Do you believe everything you hear on the radio or see on television? We have a tendency to believe anything we see in black and white, but should we?
Writers are usually expressing their opinion or theory and will provide “data” to support their theory. We need to understand that data cannot prove a theory; it can only support or disprove theory. For example scientists have a theory that the speed of light is 299,792.458 km/sec in a vacuum. That looks pretty precise, but is it a fact? It is to the best of our knowledge, but could change in the future. Prior to the 17th century we thought it was infinite. In 1667, Galileo theorized that it was ten times the speed of sound. In 1675, Roemer measured it at 200,000 km/sec, Bradley at 301,000 in 1728, Fizeau at 313,300 in 1849, and Foucault at 299,796 in 1862. You can see that what we assumed to be the true speed of light changed over time as we developed new ways of measurement.
As the authors are collecting data to support their theory, they may be consciously or subconsciously distorting the data. Pure objectivity is never possible. Optimists and pessimists will view the same data differently. They may collect or use data that only supports their theory.
We may have different political bents or different experiences so that the same data registers differently in our minds. We each have different brain filters.
Examples of data being used to support theories are charts making the rounds on the web about jobs created under past presidents making the incumbent look very good. The counterpoint by the opposition is that the more important data to observe is the rate of unemployment which paints the opposite picture because the population of the workforce in growing.
Another example of conflicting data is a chart also making the rounds on the web about the number of infant deaths for every 1000 live births by country, which paints a better picture for the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and Japan than for the United States. This implies that our healthcare system is inferior to other countries. The counterpoint to this is that our numbers are counted on pre-terms that other countries do not count; the United States doctors try to save 22-27 week babies while most other countries don’t try unless the little one breathes on its own.
We need to understand who the author is, why are they writing/talking, what is their agenda, what are their underlying assumptions, is the data flawed or skewed, etc. We need to look for counterpoints and not just take for granted what we read, hear, and see. We need to critically analyze what information which we are exposed to and develop our own theories
After all, truth is what we believe it to be.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Manufacturers Head Home



In previous articles, we have talked about United States manufacturers improving their work processes to the point that it makes more sense to do the production in this country and pull back the jobs from off-shore production.
A good example was Zytec Corporation with headquarters in Eden Prairie MN and production in Redwood Falls MN and Mexico.  After a large-scale effort to improve their processes and systems, they applied for the National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award and the Minnesota Quality Award in 1990, winning both. As a part of the examination of their processes and systems, they took a close look at the total costs of production systems and found they could do the production with higher quality and lower total costs in Minnesota. They closed the Mexican plant and brought those jobs back home.
The February 8-12 issue of Bloomberg Business Week contained an interesting article titled, “Time to Head Home for Some Manufacturers” with sub-headings of “More countries are assessing the true cost of outsourcing” and “The U.S. is a lot more competitive than people realize”.
They talked about the true cost of ownership including factors such as intellectual-property risk, cost and time of travel to visit distant suppliers, and the negative impact of separating manufacturing from engineering staff back at headquarters. Other additional factors are level of quality, warranty costs, inventory carrying costs, cost of lower-response time, time to implement engineering change notices, management and administrative time consumed in acquisition of a suitable plant or supplier, negotiations, lawsuits in foreign countries, loss of public image over environmental and exploitation of child or other labor violations, etc.  All of these factors distract management from their primary responsibility of improving the performance and sustaining the future of their organization, therefore, providing job security for the workers.
The article further states that over the last several years, firms got caught up in the outsourcing trend without thinking through the total costs. Two factors that are given for outsourcing are cheap fuel and labor. According to the article, in the last ten years, oil has increased from $22.81 per barrel to $87.48 and the average labor cost in China has increased 15%. Labor costs are further negated by technology, which has driven the labor content of production to an insignificant percentage in some industries. The value of the U.S. dollar has also shrunk which has to be considered. The price of natural gas which is a big cost factor in some industries, is much cheaper in the U.S. compared to many of the off-shore countries being considered.
Another key factor that has a large impact on jobs is the tendency of suppliers to locate close to their customers’ manufacturing sites, which is a multiplying factor. So also is the factor that for every manufacturing job there are two to three other support jobs created locally such as in grocery stores, gas stations, local government, entertainment, etc.
The shift to bring manufacturing, and therefore jobs, home to America is not as fast as we might hope. Leadership is not always doing their job of looking at the total system and analyzing all the factors in order to optimize the production system.
It all starts with continual improvement of processes and systems, not just in manufacturing but also in engineering, personnel, finance, marketing, service, repair, sales, distribution, supplier relationship, quality, and last but not least, management. If they are diligent in doing that, they may find they are better off bringing the off-shore jobs back home.
The result is pride in work, success, prosperity, and job security for all.