Amazon continues to be innovative not just in technology but with management thinking. Jeff Bezos has rejected the dictates espoused most vociferously by Wall Street mouthpieces and MBAs that encourage short term thinking and financial gimmicks which harm the long term success of companies.
Most CEOs and executives are too fearful or foolish to ignore what they are told they must do because Wall Street demands it.
Sadly not. What the überbox did contain was 16 smaller boxes “which in turn [each] contained (wrapped in foam so they wouldn’t get broken) exactly two sheets of A4 paper”
It is hard to imagine what management system creates such solutions. But it is not hard to image Dilbert’s pointy haired boss fitting right in there. It also isn't surprising the incredibly poorly managed HP is responsible for this instance of idiocy.
That impact of creating systems that continually improve the value provided to customers is still very much under appreciated. The Deming Chain Reaction is such a powerful concept that allows us to create more value and reduce costs over the long term.
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Long term thinking with an appreciation for systems allows managers to focus on improving value over the long term while many of their competitors focus on reducing current costs no matter how much damage they do to their customers and the long term success of their business.
Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.
While targets and goals can distract from improvement some guidance is useful. If the desire to is have incremental improvement one strategy may be reasonable but if the desire is to aim for huge improvement another strategy is likely required...
If you have customers that see you as adequate you will keep customers based on inertia. But you have several big problems awaiting you.
Those trying to win your customers business only have to overcome inertia – which can be very low hurdle (saving a small bit of money, some minor additional feature). If your customers are delighted they won’t leave (by and large) without significant reasons to.
The key internal focus has been set by the new president who has identified three goals: offer drastically better value in terms of environment, safety, quality and cost; contribute to the economy; and give something back to society through non-business activity (corporate social responsibility).
I think they are overly complex, poor management implementations that end up having organizations conforming processes to the IT system instead of having an IT system that support the organization...
