Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

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The Information Industries Bureau (IIB) supported by the Australian Institute for Commercialisation (AIC), staged a one day seminar for executives of Queensland’s fastest growing ICT companies on Wednesday 11 June 2008 at Hillstone, St Lucia Golf Club.

The ‘Growth Options for ICT Entrepreneurs’ seminar was attended by about 90 invited guests who were informed and entertained by some of Australia’s most successful ICT entrepreneurs.

I was one of the attendees.  Will eventually get around to back-filling the details, in the meantime this page will be a part-finished place-holder.

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I first read this book some time prior to 2007 (and we formally reviewed the book after we had moved into our new office in September 2007).

Hence, to put this review in context, I have used artistic licence with the post date…

Binary Review

This is an excellent book:

The Book	What we thought
“Good to Great” by Jim Collins	A great book! (pardon the pun)

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At this stage, the following review is from memory.

Method in the Book:

The book is a follow-on from “Built to Last”.

The authors (and their team of analysts) identified US companies that had been transformed from “Good” performance to “Great” performance, and had sustained that performance over some period (can’t recall off the top of my head – perhaps >15 years, to try to avoid skewed results because of the performance of an individual CEO).  The authors used stock market returns as the ultimate indicator of performance.

Once these companies had been identified, the authors (and their team of analysts) spent considerable time delving into the detail, trying to understand why it was that these companies had been transformed to deliver outstanding (& sustained) performance.

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The Main Findings:

As a result of this analysis, the authors identified a number of core principles that seemed to be uniform across all of the transformations they researched.

I will fill in the other details, when I get the chance:

Chapter 2) Level 5 Leadership

Check back later…

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Chapter 3)  Getting the right people on the bus

The authors expressed surprise that the general sequence of events was “first who, then where” – in other words, get the right people on the bus AND in the right seats BEFORE you sit down and work out where the business should really be headed.

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Chapter 4) Confront the brutal facts BUT never lose faith

Check back later…

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Chapter 5) The Hedgehog Concept

In the book, the “hedgehog concept” is used to describe a company focus centered on the intersection of three circles:
(a)  What are we passionate about?
(b)  What can we be the best in the world at?
(c)  What drives our resource or economic engine.

Essentially, any sustainable business resolves to finding an answer to that question - and then focusing on that area.

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Chapter 6) A culture of discipline

Check back later…

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Chapter 7) Technology accelerators

Check back later…

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I first read this book perhaps in 2002 or so (in the early days of the company, back when I had some involvement with a consulting company as well).

Hence, to put this review in context, I have used artistic licence with the post date…

Binary Review

Understanding the basic premise of the book (the need to work ON and not IN the business) is worth the cost of the book:

The Book	What we thought
“The EMyth Revisited” by Michael Gerber	Worth reading, though it is a little over-hyped (so don’t expect a silver bullet).

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The underlying premise:

I read this book back in the days when I had a foot in both camps – i.e. I was actively involved in this company (developing shrink-wrapped software to corporates in a narrow, vertical industry) at the same time as being involved in a consulting company, as well.

The general focus on this book (in terms of process-ising the business for franchising – whether virtual or real) was much more applicable to the consulting company.

For us, we’re trying to go a step further and have much of what we do fully automated (i.e. not outsourced – but completely eliminating the need to have people do certain things).  Time will tell how well we do at this!

Still – it’s a very useful exercise to draw an organisation chart and see all the boxes on the chart staring back at you, with your name in it.  At least with our recent business autopsy, we have started to change this…

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I first read this book back in 1998 (back before I had started this company), when I was trying to understand the challenges faced by the organisation I worked for at the time.

Hence, to put this review in context, I have used artistic licence with the post date…

Binary Review

Despite being read so long ago,  I still have a clear recollection (at least, I think it is!) of the 3 strategic options outlined in the book:

The Book	What we thought
“The Discipline of Market Leaders” by Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema	Well worth reading for a clear view of the 3 strategic options for your business.

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The book reports on a review of companies seen as “market leaders” back at the time the authors performed the study.

As is the case with many of these types of books, if you return to the scene of the crime 10 years later, you might generally find that the companies listed as “leaders” might not all still be around (and certainly not all of them would be market darlings anymore).

In this case, I believe that the core finding of the book still holds true.

The underlying premise:

My recollection is that the authors concluded that the successful companies were the ones who successfully focused, whereas the also-rans were the ones that tried to be, and do, everything.

What did they focus on?

The authors highlight 3 strategic options for companies:

STRATEGIC OPTION 1 = Your company could focus on being a Product Leader – in which case your core advantage would be that you would be first to market with new product ideas.  You would be continuously innovating.

STRATEGIC OPTION 2 = Your company could focus on some aspect of Operational Excellence.  The most common form of operational excellence might be lowest cost (e.g. the mass-market retailing mega-stores) but this need not be the only point of excellence.

STRATEGIC OPTION 3 = Your company could choose to focus on providing exceptional Customer Intimacy.

On reflection, now (i.e. July 2009) it seems to me that there would be a gradual transition of focus for companies looking to deliver a certain widget to a customer – i.e. the first to do so would be the product leader, then costs of production would drop and the operationally excellent companies would enter, and finally the addition of customer service would be the intended point of differentiation for the last type of company to enter (by which time the Product Leader is already prototyping Widget Mark 4).

Not sure if the book made this point.

Will have to re-read the book, sometime, to see what more I can gain from it in relation to my own experiences over the past 10 years or so…