Customer focus is an enduring and fundamental principle of business. The logic goes that success will follow if you identify and solve customer problems, use them to build new products or services, and create strong relationships. However, the truth is that customers can be a dreadful guide, and new technology means it is an idea that may have had its day.
It’s good to celebrate how far Australia has progressed when it comes to women and work, but policymakers must also recognise how far we have to go.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told journalists recently that Australia was seeing the highest ever female workforce participation rate and the largest number of women ever in the workforce.
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Ubuntu has been a buzzword in African management-talk for two decades, but appears not to have delivered in African economies.
Reckless beyond description.
These were the words of former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound following Maria Sharapova’s shock announcement that she tested positive at the Australian Open for the banned substance meldonium.
Poignantly, Pound added: “Running a US$30m business depends on you staying eligible to play tennis.” He was referencing Sharapova’s position as one of the most marketable female sports stars on the planet.
Online marketplaces, also known as platform companies, are sprouting up everywhere and redefining business in every industry. “The Uber of ….” has become shorthand for tech startups looking to redefine the way everything is delivered, from legal services (Sydney-based LawPath) to Package deliveries (San Francisco-based Doorman), to Lottery services (Gibraltar-based Lottoland).
In their book Business Model Generation, authors Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur explore the power of asking “what if” questions. This is illustrated by the example of furniture giant IKEA. In 1960, it asked:
What if customers bought furniture in components in a box and assembled it themselves?
The idea was unheard of at the time. Today it’s common practice in the furniture industry.
Back in the early 1980s, when I started researching the field of careers, the notion of “work-life balance” was decidedly embryonic. It certainly had almost no resonance among women, who were still expected to work both at work and at home. Now it’s an acknowledged part of the zeitgeist and central to how we arrange our lives.
Plans have been afoot for a new sports newspaper for Scotland. The proposed paper would be weekly and big names such as tennis coach Judy Murray and football pundit Pat Nevin signed up as columnists. All it requires is £50,000 in crowdfunding pledges by February 25 and the first copy will drop in May. Developed by a group of Scottish journalists and fronted by media news site AllMediaScotland, those who pledge money would be rewarded with the first edition of the paper.
We will soon get a much closer look at the gender pay gap in Britain. Around 8,000 companies with more than 250 employees will have to publish details of salaries received by men and women by 2018. However, will this legislation help to close the gap?
Slowing growth in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) – the world’s second largest economy – is grabbing the headlines with some suggesting a third wave of the 2008 global financial crisis. While this topic deserves attention because of its global economic implications, there is insufficient analysis of firms in global production networks (GPNs), which were at the forefront of the economic transformation in PRC and the rest of East Asia, and lessons for latecomers to GPNs.
