Perspective: Some resolutions for Corporate America

Before Corporate America starts thinking up new resolutions for 2008, I've been saving up a few ideas all year to give it a head start.

First, I'm tired of the business-as-usual mentality that permeates most corporate decision making. I'm not asking anyone to compromise "shareholder value" by giving away stuff for free. I just want the things companies bring into our lives--and the ways they bring them--to work better.

For example, service activation is a joke. There's nothing more frustrating than complicated setup and lag-time in enabling people to use what they pay for. Take the iPhone fiasco. Hey, cool device--hats off to Apple for designing something so fun to play with. But why were iPhone customers forced to go through such a complicated activation process? When I walked out of that AT&T store, I was already annoyed that I couldn't immediately call someone. But I waited. I figured iTunes always works and I'd be making my first calls in 10 minutes.

But noooooo. I got sent to old-fashion phone company customer service hell. After calling three numbers and waiting on the phone for hours, someone in the technical service department had to manually activate my device. There's got to be a better way.

Trying to box out your competition with proprietary "standards" is not our idea of innovation.

Here's another thought: before buying another competitor, why not first take care of existing customers? And stop cutting corners on quality. I really get annoyed by recalls--though I don't seem as surprised as my supplier that they happen all the time. I know it must be tempting to look at the quote from an overseas supplier you've never met and say, "Wow, look how much I can save." But do you really expect us to believe that you were shocked that your overseas suppliers cut some corners in production? Don't say it never occurred to you that actually spot-checking the quality of your overseas partners would be a good idea. I applaud the cost benefits of globalization. But stop presuming that your antiquated quality-control program is up to the challenge.

How about taking some of the profits from your globalization effort and investing in some new quality management programs?

Another thing: you finance types who manipulate the numbers really annoy me. I try to take pride in the power of capitalism and you give us the ethics of a Moscow pimp. Didn't we learn a lesson from Enron? Why all of a sudden am I seeing "downturns" in markets when what is really going on is a reality check to your bad decision making? Seriously, why did you think that someone could spend 80 percent of his gross income on a balloon home mortgage? Are you playing a shell game with our retirement funds? It might be hard to continually show better return, but don't bow to pressure to play with the numbers to make things appear better.

Also, pick a standard and go with it. I like competition, but I hate confusion. It's hard enough to get agreement on whether to see an action flick or a romance. Don't force us to grapple with the nuances of which type of video, HD DVD or Blu-ray, is the best. When I want to listen to music on a portable player I don't want to stop and consider the merits of AAC versus MP3 versus WMA. Didn't you learn anything from Betamax?

Trying to box out your competition with proprietary "standards" is not our idea of innovation. Sit down with your competitors and agree on some standards, and then focus on quality and features.

Henry Ford changed the game, but the Model T got 24 miles per gallon in 1904. Why are we hovering at 20 mpg today? I hear all the stories about wars, oppressive taxes, seasonal fluctuations, our fascination with sport-utility vehicles, but c'mon! It's bad enough we spend 50 minutes each way commuting to work, why do we have to drop so much of our net income into our tanks?

I bought into the "power of capitalism to foster innovation" but your short-term thinking is going to turn us into communists. It is not your job to maintain the status quo. Get with your suppliers and collaborate on new ways of doing things.

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!

Biography
Rob Risany is vice president of product marketing at business process management provider Savvion.

More Perspectives

[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!