Really interesting article from Deloitte’s Lang Davison about the “problem” with traditional business metrics. Relates back to the Shift Index I spoke about earlier.
During a steep recession, managers obsess over short-term performance goals such as cost cutting, sales, and market share growth. Meanwhile, economists chart data like GDP growth, unemployment levels, and balance-of-trade shifts to gauge the health of the overall business environment. The problem is, focusing only on traditional metrics often masks long-term forces of change that undercut normal sources of economic value. “Normal” may in fact be a thing of the past: Even when the economy heats up again, companies’ returns will remain under pressure.
via Harvard Business Review
I was having a discussion the other day with one of my employees about the benefit of twitter and how it can be utilized in a business setting as a value-adding marketing tool. He was not so convinced. He could only see twitter as a way to tell people what you were doing at any given moment. “I’m sitting on my couch” or “I’m going to the bathroom!” were his tweet examples to show the inanity. He was all about what you could do with Facebook – in his eyes – a much richer experience.
I think the twitter and micro-blogging phenomenon is a lot more telling about social media in general than most would give credit for, and if you can find a way to use this tool to your advantage, you’re instantly ahead of the pack. At least for now.
What can you do with 140 characters or less, the length of each tweet? A lot, restaurants are discovering - everything from posting daily specials to luring followers with offers of free appetizers to offering a glimpse of kitchen life. It’s all good for business.
“It’s instant and free marketing,’’ said Chris Barr, a manager at L’Espalier, which joined Twitter this month.
Restaurants are starting to sign on by the dozens, inspired, perhaps, by the success of Kogi, a Korean barbecue taco truck in Los Angeles that gained national notoriety by tweeting its whereabouts. In February, Newsweek called it “America’s first viral restaurant.’’
[via The Boston Globe]
Software as a service (SaaS) could be the panacea for smaller business, according to research published today.
Investing more in software as a service (SaaS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) could help smaller businesses lower their operating costs and help them grow in spite of the recession.
So claims a report released today by Ardent Solutions, which makes the case for the mass implementation of SaaS for SMEs, stating the majority of advantages revolve around cost reduction. However, the removal of many costs by solutions such as SaaS and ERP allow SMEs to now focus purely on business by removing the burden of IT, and less down time obviously equates to increased productivity.
“Many [SMEs] have already made a move towards leveraging external IT expertise for support, maintenance, and advice. Making the move to SaaS is the next logical step,” said Andrew Watkinson, managing director at Ardent Solutions, who commissioned the study. According to the report, recession-hit SMEs put limitations on IT spending in an attempt to reduce costs, with 19 per cent making little or no investment in IT for two to three years. [via IT PRO]
by Erik on June 29, 2009
in IBM
Ok, I don’t want to go overboard with the imagery from the IBM archives, but there is something very iconic with this photograph. The large steamer bag (I think it has a typewriter in it?), the summer weight suit, the standard IBM white-shirt with the “smart tie,” all add to the overall iconic feeling of the picture. I wonder what he’s thinking as he’s walking down the street and the classic cars are zipping by?
I can’t stop thinking there’s something surreal going on here. If anything, this picture would make Michael proud.
An IBM electric typewriter marketing representative in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1962.
[via IBM Archives]
