Comments on: Some resolutions for Corporate America

Savvion executive Rob Risany has had it--and he's issuing a manifesto that you corporate types ignore at your own risk.

[mjm01010101]

What a bunch of crap?

iphone: Get a competitor's phone that doesn't require activation at home.

HD/DVD standard: Nothing forces you to it. DVD still works wonderfully. A valid complaint would be the content available is crap, but that exists all over Hollywood's spectrum.

"Why are we hovering at 20 mpg today?" We aren't. We have cars that get 30, 40, 50 mpg, and there's always bikes, available since the 1890's. What we have is choice, and if people want to invest in cars that will cost them $100-$200/week just to drive, let them. This is a classic business case of eventually it will be prohibitively too expensive to drive gas guzzlers, and the market will react without the government's pushing.

"I hope you see where I'm coming from. I'm sick and tired of broken ways of doing things mucking up our lives. Stop pointing fingers while managing your stock options. Instead, just make stuff that works the way it should!"

And I'm sick of blogs that whine about situations that don't exist. There are already competitors to business for each situation you suggested. If the market wanted them, they would pay for them.

People want iphones and their home activation.
People want cars that look cool but get crap mileage.
People want what you don't.

[Macaresafer]

I don't think so.

iPhone: Most people (almost all, in fact) had/have no trouble activating. It was/is in fact easier and less time consuming than waiting in a store for some one to enter your information. You're both wrong on this one!

HD/DVD: Another case of marketing winning over engineering. Consumers don't know enough about the technology to make a smart choice, and companies don't care which is better, only what they'll make the most profit from. You can be sure that consumers will lose out in the end, which ever one wins.

Auto efficiency: Yes, this is consumer choice, but people can only choose from the available options. You can't choose the best product if no one will make it. All electric vehicles could use far less energy and cause far less pollution, but who will make them? Car companies prefer hybrids because they still have spark plugs, radiators, transmissions, mufflers, and air filters, all of which require significant maintenance. Where's the revenue stream in an electric vehicle? Replacing batteries every five years? Not enough to replace all that maintenance.

People want to make the right choices, but when the options are all wrong, that's impossible.

[chash360]

They're making the right descisions...

They are making the right descisions to put money in their own greedy pockets. Regardless of how it affects the Employees, Customers, Business or the world in general. Most members of Board of Directors in large corperations have no loyalty or real comittment to the businesses they manage, most aretypically not employees of the corperation. They care soley about the stock price and its continued growth, and how much gets in thier pockets. As long as the business appears to be able to grow the stock price, they will make descisions that may be beneficial to the business, but loose that confidence and they will kill your business, before letting money out of their stock. You can make record earnings, quarter after quarter, show a long established trend of increasesd revenue and profit, but as soon as anything threatens a gain in stock performance, they will issues cutbacks, wage and hiring freezes, layoffs, outsourcing, anything to keep money flowing into their pockets, even at the expense of the business.

We have had Gas Efficiency technologies that could have had us over 50MPG avaerage 20 years ago. These patents are bought up by the big auto and oil companies to be suppressed, so they can continue gouging, and raking in profits. Some think that eventually gas will become so expensive that alternatives will have to come out, why? When they can just keep jacking up the prices and make loads of money.

As for proprietary 'standards' so many companies are trying to establish them selves as the standard for something because they want royalties from IP. But a true standard is one everyone agrees upon, and is open to be used by anyone, royalty free. Imagine if I had to pay a royalty every time I had to set my computer's clock, to the national time standards. This is the absurdity we live in. Why would anyone put forth all the resources and work to establish a standard, that is given away for free? Hoepfully because the benefit of the standard, will end up saving more time and resources than you put into establishing it, thats what real standards are for.

[graphics1]

I couldn't agree more

Most corporations are bad corporate citizens. Their concern for shareholder profits and executive bonuses far out shadows their concern for their customers, community or the environment.

[TomMariner]

It starts at the top

Rob is right to target the business leaders -- They set the tone and control the purse strings that dictate the priorities.

Much of his article focuses on quality -- in the way we develop, produce and sell products. In my business, medical devices, the FDA focuses on the processes we use to go from idea to stuff that helps our patients. They know that if there is a recall or customer complaint that something is wrong in the way we not only produce the affected product, but in much else we do. And that boils down to management emphasis.

One of the main difficulties can be discovered by looking at the background or the senior staff -- Not that they won't be effective, but if there is not a strong presence of interested, informed technical executives, the mistakes that Rob reports will surely occur.

It's strange, but if the sales and financial types totally run the organization, it will be very improbable they will be able to achieve their goals in a product firm. Whenever I see a competitor's top layer change away from technical leadership I smile -- I gottem now!