Why we should not equate Australia’s budget to our household budget
Often, we hear the claim that government should manage the budget better, after all it is just like a hugely complex household budget. The last election was full of the Liberals claiming to be better managers of money than Labour, despite the ample evidence to...
Why are we having supply chain indigestion?
Over time, as changes in the world trading environment evolved, corporations of all sizes matched that evolution through their supply chains by seeking efficiency. China began to open its economy in the 1980's, bringing a massive previously untapped...
Define your ‘That is for me’ differentiator
The first Elvis festival in Parkes, NSW, was in January 1993. The brainchild of a couple of Elvis fans running a restaurant in the town, who thought it might be a bit of fun. A couple of hundred people showed up. Every year since then, except the last two, it...
Tell us the problem you solve. Please.
Manufacturing Week was last week in Sydney. I spent Wednesday there, snooping for solutions to problems most of my SME manufacturing clients may not yet recognise they have, and just looking for ideas. Found one that might be useful, but it was hard...
What is the point of ‘Purpose’?
Much of the volume of paper dedicated to pontificating about strategy these days seems to focus on 'Purpose'. Sadly, we do not have a workable and agreed definition. What we do have is confusion about the meaning, particularly when you consider the other...
How do you effectively deal with fragmenting supply chains?
Fragmentation of supply chains is the reality post covid, and now with the turmoil in Europe, evolving attitude of the world's factory, China, Brexit, polarisation of the US, and the increasingly fragile geopolitical world order. Many businesses I see have...
The tax hole nobody will touch
As the new government beds in, the usual hymn-sheet of 'the budget position is worse than the previous lot let on' is being sung. All the public discussion will be about nips and tucks around the edges of the tax system, when the reality is that fundamental...
Two questions to ask before deciding.
There is no situation that requires a decision that cannot be enhanced by asking two simple questions: Is the information right? Is it the right information? These are different questions that often become confused. An accurate piece of data is of no...
6 strategies to choose between opportunities.
Opportunities abound, and are hard to ignore. They emerge to consume resources, distract attention, divert investment, obscure the focus on strategy, and generally disrupt operations. How do you ignore, or better still, systematically, and quickly assess them,...
Bureaucracy is necessary. Unfortunately.
Bureaucracy evolved to enable operations to be scaled as mechanisation started to slowly take over from individual effort in the 1800's. It enabled tasks to be allocated, completed, and managed where the expertise resided, rather than one person doing...