’Our industry is unique and should not be compared with other industries!’ This is a common phrase I have heard countless times throughout my consulting career. But is it true? Strangely enough the most successful companies become prosperous not by excluding comparisons, but by leveraging other industries success factors and applying them in a new context. Many other companies that innovated…
The German retail and travel conglomerate Arcandor AG formerly known as KarstadtQuelle AG filed on June 9th 2009 for insolvency. It claims that the financial crisis is the reason. It had asked the German government in May for state aid but the government refused. But is the financial crisis the real reason for the dire situation? I do not think…
The typical answer from managers to the question “What is the purpose of your business?” is: “to make money”. Well, that is to some point right but the money comes from customers and therefore the purpose of a business is to find profitable customers. And financing your sales to your customers is only sustainable when you see the cash in…
“We have to pay so high salaries otherwise we don’t get the right people” is often heard from firms even in the crisis. Particularly the failed banking industry was very good in this salary death spiral. Salary was seen in this market as the only differentiators with great results. I always wondered why the so highly paid managers could not…
The current crisis could be a great start to rethink your business, but large companies do the opposite. Besides the usual and essential task to save cash they push their business units into more controlling and reporting of the existing business. Today, I had a long chat with an executive from a business unit in a large company. We talked…
