Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

In ”The Profit Principle” the authors make the challenging statement that:

“The only reason to go into business is to make money. …
If you’re lucky, you’ll make that money doing something you love.  If you’re really lucky, it will also lead to some greater good – but don’t let delusions of grandeur get in the way of your profit and loss statements”
(p92 in my copy, my emphasis added)

This statement, on the one hand, is very sensible – but, on the other hand, is a direct challenge to many others who empathise that a business must have a purpose that is more than just making money, if it is to be sustainable, and successful:

(a)  Jim Collins calls this “more than profits”;

(b)   Daniel Pink talks about the importance of Purpose.

(c)  Jason Baptiste notes that if entrepreneurs “got into entrepreneurship first and foremost for the money” then they “are in the wrong business”

Hence there is an apparent paradox between these two points of view.

read more »

I first read this book about 10 years ago. Re-read recently it to refresh my memory of some of the core concepts expounded by the authors – as it is very topical for the company, where we are at presently, and with several important decisions to be made.

1)  Binary Review

This one is a pretty easy read, with good insights (and many anecdotes).

The Book	What we thought
“Positioning – the battle for your mind” by Al Ries & Jack Trout	Very topical for us

read more »

I have previously written about how we need to be focused on delivering value to our customers in order to achieve our vision for the growth of our business.

A relentless drive to deliver real value to our customers is one of my Core Values.

I know that this is not the way every company approaches business, but it is where our bus is headed.

Hence it was with great interest that I had a chance to read through Roger Martin’s article “The Age of Customer Capitalism” in the HBR Magazine for January-February 2010 – as this provided another reason to do the same.

read more »

In long-hand, you will be known as our:

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants

That’s a bit of a mouthful, so we have shortened it to a variety of titles used on this blog and elsewhere:
1)  GM Software
2)  Chief Software Engineer
3)  Director of the Product Development “Factory”

I would stress that all three aspects of the role are important.

read more »

As you might have noticed, I have been adopting an iterative (and open) approach to the communication of my Vision for the company, starting with this post, and linked to several others that provide more details.

As this communication has been progressively clarified, I have become more aware of the need to also clearly communicate why our company exists, in the first place (it’s not primarily to make a profit, though of course it’s nice when it does).

Hence, this post has been added – it’s currently the 1st draft, and may be progressively refined (depending on what feedback I receive about how clear it is)

Summary

I had previously posted about the Mission of the company on the same page on which I posted about the Vision for the company.

To allow me to to provide further explanation, I have shifted this to a separate post:

WHY?     The purpose of our business is to help the broadest range of people make the most of the opportunities that the electricity market offers them.

HOW?      We do this by helping people understand the electricity market (so they can see the opportunities for themselves).

read more »

A central part of the changes we’re making internally, stemming from the Autopsy 2 process, is that we’re aiming to get very clear about “why?”

Why does our company exist in the first place?

Why should our customers care about what we’re striving to be?

Why would anyone be led by me?

Shirlaws call these questions “context”. read more »