Reading an article on the HBR site triggered many nascent thoughts. The article argues that some CEO decisions are based on the fact that their compensation is solely linked to the share price of the firm. You can view the article here- http://hbr.org/2010/06/column-you-are-what-you-measure/ar/1
Share price is the outcome of the current and the expected future performance of a firm. This, also only in an ideal situation where there is no price manipulation. The current and the future expected performance comes from a series of decisions. The decisions could be about sources of funds, types of markets, manufacturing facilities, etc. So, the share price is essentially an outcome of a series of decisions.
About 50 years back process control ideas rocked the manufacturing industry. Instead of accepting or rejecting a product at the end of manufacturing cycle, effort was focused on ensuring the right set up, right tools, right trained operators, etc. to ensure a correct product. Process control advocated strengthening the process to ensure good products. The focus of measurements were process parameters and not end product features.
Till the product reaches the end of the line, it is subjected to significant additional work. In this sense, the finished product is more expensive than the raw material. When significant amount of finished products are found to be defective it causes high rework cost. In some cases managers dilute the quality guidelines to ensure the product is accepted. In still some other cases, sometimes, managers cheat to show that the products are as per norm. This is because with the end of pipe measurement, the cost and stake of having a rejected product is just too high.
This is what precisely happens in one number outcome based measurements. CEOs would do almost anything to ensure that this number stays up. Such measurements are the root of many corporate scams. The process shifts from ensuring good processes to ensuring good results. Just like in a shop floor, good results can rarely come from weak processes.
The people to blame in most such cases are those who set and reward on the basis of such measures. It is definitely easy to use the stock price for CEO incentive, but it is definitely not a good measure. For one, it is merely a measure of outcome and not about the method or process strength in the organisation. Two, the stock price is a lagging indicator. The price goes down after the performance is reported as poor. In some cases it could be too late to affect an improvement. Three, it is not very difficult to manipulate stock price movement over a short term without a change or performance. This incentives short term behaviour among executives who might want to cash in and move out.
This idea is not limited to CEO measurement alone. It can easily be expanded to measure every professional in every area. The key is to measure the means of doing work. Good outcome is a function of good means and vice versa is not necessarily true.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Is being Green a luxury?
The CEO of a logistics group related to a major retailing company thundered that "green" was not something they could afford. Right now they want to set the supply chain right and think of being green at a later stage. He further added that being green was a branding exercise which his company did not need at this stage.
The young CEO created two divisions - right supply chain and green supply chain and his speech clearly indicated that these were different. I guess the CEO is not alone in having these views. To a good extent we academicians and a few consultants are responsible for propagating green as a mechanism of adding an extra cost to be more environment friendly.
http://www.sustainable-supplychain.com/Sustainability_is_Free___The_Case_for_Sustaina.pdf
The article above cites the example of quality movement. Earlier, the basic idea of 'cost' of quality was prevalent. Quality was something that would be checked for after the product was made. It was about inspection and segregating good and bad products. Today, the term is 'cost of poor quality'. Quality is built in at every stage and includes product design, maintenance, and every function in the organisation. The major change was to have quality in every process to have a good quality product.
Has this increased the 'cost' for firms? In certain areas, may be yes. But overall, the yields have gone up, the rejections reduced and the customers more satisfied. This shift was not overnight and it happened over a long span of time. Some companies are in fact discovering this fact in the last few years only.
It is same with green and sustainability issues. Today, being green means installing a good effluent treatment plant or using expensive technology to emit less carbon. This is very similar to the end of the pipe quality concept followed earlier. With time, I am sure the young CEO and his brethren will realise the difference. Every individual has to work in a way to avoid wastage and every process has to be green. Its just a matter of time for sustainability to be a compulsion to do business.
The young CEO created two divisions - right supply chain and green supply chain and his speech clearly indicated that these were different. I guess the CEO is not alone in having these views. To a good extent we academicians and a few consultants are responsible for propagating green as a mechanism of adding an extra cost to be more environment friendly.
http://www.sustainable-supplychain.com/Sustainability_is_Free___The_Case_for_Sustaina.pdf
The article above cites the example of quality movement. Earlier, the basic idea of 'cost' of quality was prevalent. Quality was something that would be checked for after the product was made. It was about inspection and segregating good and bad products. Today, the term is 'cost of poor quality'. Quality is built in at every stage and includes product design, maintenance, and every function in the organisation. The major change was to have quality in every process to have a good quality product.
Has this increased the 'cost' for firms? In certain areas, may be yes. But overall, the yields have gone up, the rejections reduced and the customers more satisfied. This shift was not overnight and it happened over a long span of time. Some companies are in fact discovering this fact in the last few years only.
It is same with green and sustainability issues. Today, being green means installing a good effluent treatment plant or using expensive technology to emit less carbon. This is very similar to the end of the pipe quality concept followed earlier. With time, I am sure the young CEO and his brethren will realise the difference. Every individual has to work in a way to avoid wastage and every process has to be green. Its just a matter of time for sustainability to be a compulsion to do business.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Fun theory
Controlling human behaviour is a major task in business. For businesses with presence in multiple countries this is number one priority. There are standard carrot and stick approaches that organisations follow to control behaviour and limit deviation. So, if a person comes late for three days in a month, she loses half a day's salary. A vendor who faults on quality pays a steep fine. Bonuses are awarded to employees who achieve a certain target.
Nothing wrong with this approach. I personally have been a big proponent of a structured measurement system for employees. I have advocated that the financial incentives must be structured to incentivise the required behaviour. Reverse is also true. So, if a boss promotes a subordinate who does not question him at all and has a subservient and obedient behaviour, chances are that majority of his subordinates will behave like that. Some companies have incentives for sales professionals not just according to value and volume, but also according to the mix of the products sold. So, at least 20% (or some 'x' %) of the products sold must be those from a certain basket.
There is another way. Have a look at this site: http://www.thefuntheory.com/virals
Do have a look especially at the third video, the staircase one.
It is a new perspective on controlling behaviour. It s about making it 'fun' to act in a particular manner. Staircases that make a piano sound, a dustbin with sound affects or a bottle recycling machine that doubles as a game are all simple examples. In all cases they managed to achieve the desired affect. People did start using the stairs more. The dustbin did gather more garbage.
As business leaders we need to put our thinking caps. Yes, deviant thinking is difficult. But it is necessary. We need to insert some 'fun' into our businesses. Employees should enjoy coming to work. Their should be some pleasure in following the processes. This is a surely a very sound recipe to create path breaking innovations and high performance organisations.
Yes, business is serious business. There are billions of Rupees (or Euros) at stake. Does this mean that we need to not smile while working? Maybe people who understand the hows and whys of human behaviour would add more value to this topic. This is precisely the Virgin (Branson) way of doing work and I am sure many of our businesses would do better that way.
Nothing wrong with this approach. I personally have been a big proponent of a structured measurement system for employees. I have advocated that the financial incentives must be structured to incentivise the required behaviour. Reverse is also true. So, if a boss promotes a subordinate who does not question him at all and has a subservient and obedient behaviour, chances are that majority of his subordinates will behave like that. Some companies have incentives for sales professionals not just according to value and volume, but also according to the mix of the products sold. So, at least 20% (or some 'x' %) of the products sold must be those from a certain basket.
There is another way. Have a look at this site: http://www.thefuntheory.com/virals
Do have a look especially at the third video, the staircase one.
It is a new perspective on controlling behaviour. It s about making it 'fun' to act in a particular manner. Staircases that make a piano sound, a dustbin with sound affects or a bottle recycling machine that doubles as a game are all simple examples. In all cases they managed to achieve the desired affect. People did start using the stairs more. The dustbin did gather more garbage.
As business leaders we need to put our thinking caps. Yes, deviant thinking is difficult. But it is necessary. We need to insert some 'fun' into our businesses. Employees should enjoy coming to work. Their should be some pleasure in following the processes. This is a surely a very sound recipe to create path breaking innovations and high performance organisations.
Yes, business is serious business. There are billions of Rupees (or Euros) at stake. Does this mean that we need to not smile while working? Maybe people who understand the hows and whys of human behaviour would add more value to this topic. This is precisely the Virgin (Branson) way of doing work and I am sure many of our businesses would do better that way.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Bottom of the pyramid employees
In businesses that are bottom heavy (ignore the pun) like retail, transportation and warehousing, there is usually a significant difference of salary between the top and the bottom. The CEO of a retailing firm could have a salary package that is 200 to 400 times more than the package of a worker who manages the cash register. Such businesses are also characterised by high attrition of low salary scale employees and also have lower training expenses.
That lower rung employees will have an attrition of around 15% per month is assumed to be a unchangeable fact. Firms design all their processes around this fact. These businesses try to "McDonaldise" their shop floor processes and reduce the dependence of employee knowledge on business. Employees are specialised in a particular task and department. So, a cash counter person will do just that. A person in the toys section will do just that. They set up a tall hierarchy based structure to ensure process compliance. They have a strong recruitment division and also they foster partnerships with recruitment consultants. The salary of the lower rung workers is kept at a minimum and they are trained only if they stay with the company for more than a year. It seems logical. If they are going to leave, it does not seem sensible to waste resources on these employees.
A retail firm in Spain has turned this logic on its head. They pay their shop floor level employees higher, and invest significantly more in their training. Mercadona, a Spanish retailer, has sales per employee that is 18 times the average for Spain and 50 times higher than the USA. They have an attrition rate of only 3.5% per year. Look at the article here - http://bit.ly/mercadona
Its the vexing issue of questioning the assumptions. Bottom of the pyramid employees are directly in contact with the customers. Customers need intelligent employees. A McDonald's with 15 items only on the menu can standardise every little thing. A super market with 1500 items cannot do this. Many times sale happens because of good selling by the employees. And employees become good at selling only if they are on the job for some time and they feel good about the job that they are doing.
Another way to look at it is the cost issue. A store clerk would have a salary or around Rs. 45,000 per year only. A retail CEO can have a salary of around Rs. 20 million. Assuming a store has 400 ground level staff, their total package would still less the package of the single CEO. A 20 % increment amounts to Rs. 750 per employee per month. In an apparels store if one employee sells one extra shirt, this cost is easily recovered. It may not be as simple as this. A salary hike for the shop floor workers would have a domino affect increase for the supervisors and above also. Yet, the impact would not be a difference of life and death for the organisation.
If it has been done in Spain, I am sure it can be done in India also. But, someone needs to challenge the basic assumption. Some firm needs to start at recognising that the bottom of the pyramid employees are important. They need to move from lip service to actually facilitating these employees. Sam Walton had said, "I take care of my employees, they in turn take care of my customers". Someone needs to actually put this into practice.
That lower rung employees will have an attrition of around 15% per month is assumed to be a unchangeable fact. Firms design all their processes around this fact. These businesses try to "McDonaldise" their shop floor processes and reduce the dependence of employee knowledge on business. Employees are specialised in a particular task and department. So, a cash counter person will do just that. A person in the toys section will do just that. They set up a tall hierarchy based structure to ensure process compliance. They have a strong recruitment division and also they foster partnerships with recruitment consultants. The salary of the lower rung workers is kept at a minimum and they are trained only if they stay with the company for more than a year. It seems logical. If they are going to leave, it does not seem sensible to waste resources on these employees.
A retail firm in Spain has turned this logic on its head. They pay their shop floor level employees higher, and invest significantly more in their training. Mercadona, a Spanish retailer, has sales per employee that is 18 times the average for Spain and 50 times higher than the USA. They have an attrition rate of only 3.5% per year. Look at the article here - http://bit.ly/mercadona
Its the vexing issue of questioning the assumptions. Bottom of the pyramid employees are directly in contact with the customers. Customers need intelligent employees. A McDonald's with 15 items only on the menu can standardise every little thing. A super market with 1500 items cannot do this. Many times sale happens because of good selling by the employees. And employees become good at selling only if they are on the job for some time and they feel good about the job that they are doing.
Another way to look at it is the cost issue. A store clerk would have a salary or around Rs. 45,000 per year only. A retail CEO can have a salary of around Rs. 20 million. Assuming a store has 400 ground level staff, their total package would still less the package of the single CEO. A 20 % increment amounts to Rs. 750 per employee per month. In an apparels store if one employee sells one extra shirt, this cost is easily recovered. It may not be as simple as this. A salary hike for the shop floor workers would have a domino affect increase for the supervisors and above also. Yet, the impact would not be a difference of life and death for the organisation.
If it has been done in Spain, I am sure it can be done in India also. But, someone needs to challenge the basic assumption. Some firm needs to start at recognising that the bottom of the pyramid employees are important. They need to move from lip service to actually facilitating these employees. Sam Walton had said, "I take care of my employees, they in turn take care of my customers". Someone needs to actually put this into practice.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Growth through capacity
A decade back idle capacity was abhorred. It was the duty of the plant manager to ensure that everyone was kept busy and the machines kept churning out material. High utilisation was a rule to balance the high costs of capacity. This also led to large batch sizes and long product runs. This was the time when demand was relatively stable, competition was manageable, retailers had low bargaining power and organisations were sure that sooner or later they would sell everything that they produce.
The ripples caused by the recession and the subsequent recovery have ensured a high variance in demand. There is a steady increase in the product variety being offered. Competing players are also coming out with new products and innovative promotions. Retailers are also more adamant on the exact type of products they need. Organised retailers can in fact bully manufacturers and brand owners in product assortment and dispatch frequency. Given this scenario, now the companies are laden with many products that they are not able to sell.
In the first scenario, the only cost of inventory was the cost of interest for the amount carried. This was a minor cost. If the cost of working capital was 12% (assumed for simplicity sake) and a product stayed in the factory warehouse for a month, the carrying cost would be only 1%. The product margin more than made up for this cost. Now, with the risk of the product not getting sold at all this inventory holding cost has shot up.
Directly reducing inventory would reduce customer service. Especially with a higher variety and fluctuating demand, low inventory would lead to low fill rates. This would lead to high costs of not lost customers. Factories operating at high utilisation would have inflexible and rigid production schedules. A change of customer requirement is usually met through inventory. With low inventories, a change would have to be met with a change of production schedules. Again, with low inventories, A change of production schedule will invariably cause a stock out of some other product B.
Demand variability is very difficult to control. So, it seems inevitable that companies learn to live with high inventories and high wastage. They can of course try to squeeze costs from vendors and other service providers. This is precisely what companies are indulging in now. What the companies need to do at this stage is to re look at the way they 'cost' capacity.
Look at this article here:
http://www.livemint.com/2010/07/12233422/HUL-aims-to-react-faster-to-ma.html
The largest consumer goods company in India, HUL is planning to combat the volatility with capacity expansion. They are planning an increase in the capacity levels and a few places like the Selvas plant has doubled their existing assembly lines.
Excess capacity is definitely cost. But here again, like the inventory of the earlier era, machines are sooner or later likely to be used. Having spare capacity means that the manufacturer is more flexible. They can be more responsive to the existing market demand and give the customers exactly what they want. Making consumer goods is not like making rockets. The lead time to make a product is a few hours provided the capacity exists. Thus firms can drastically cut inventories if they have spare capacity.
Yes, the machines would be idle and the operators would also not have anything to do once in a while. But, overall the total costs would reduce and the fill rates would go up. Cheers to HUL for this change. Now with the leader showing the way, may be the others will follow.
The ripples caused by the recession and the subsequent recovery have ensured a high variance in demand. There is a steady increase in the product variety being offered. Competing players are also coming out with new products and innovative promotions. Retailers are also more adamant on the exact type of products they need. Organised retailers can in fact bully manufacturers and brand owners in product assortment and dispatch frequency. Given this scenario, now the companies are laden with many products that they are not able to sell.
In the first scenario, the only cost of inventory was the cost of interest for the amount carried. This was a minor cost. If the cost of working capital was 12% (assumed for simplicity sake) and a product stayed in the factory warehouse for a month, the carrying cost would be only 1%. The product margin more than made up for this cost. Now, with the risk of the product not getting sold at all this inventory holding cost has shot up.
Directly reducing inventory would reduce customer service. Especially with a higher variety and fluctuating demand, low inventory would lead to low fill rates. This would lead to high costs of not lost customers. Factories operating at high utilisation would have inflexible and rigid production schedules. A change of customer requirement is usually met through inventory. With low inventories, a change would have to be met with a change of production schedules. Again, with low inventories, A change of production schedule will invariably cause a stock out of some other product B.
Demand variability is very difficult to control. So, it seems inevitable that companies learn to live with high inventories and high wastage. They can of course try to squeeze costs from vendors and other service providers. This is precisely what companies are indulging in now. What the companies need to do at this stage is to re look at the way they 'cost' capacity.
Look at this article here:
http://www.livemint.com/2010/07/12233422/HUL-aims-to-react-faster-to-ma.html
The largest consumer goods company in India, HUL is planning to combat the volatility with capacity expansion. They are planning an increase in the capacity levels and a few places like the Selvas plant has doubled their existing assembly lines.
Excess capacity is definitely cost. But here again, like the inventory of the earlier era, machines are sooner or later likely to be used. Having spare capacity means that the manufacturer is more flexible. They can be more responsive to the existing market demand and give the customers exactly what they want. Making consumer goods is not like making rockets. The lead time to make a product is a few hours provided the capacity exists. Thus firms can drastically cut inventories if they have spare capacity.
Yes, the machines would be idle and the operators would also not have anything to do once in a while. But, overall the total costs would reduce and the fill rates would go up. Cheers to HUL for this change. Now with the leader showing the way, may be the others will follow.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Profits from expansion
The hypermarket chain Hypercity has 7 stores in India currently - three in and around Mumbai and 4 in other cities. Shoppers Stop had a 19% equity in the store which they have increased to 51%. Now they want to open eight new stores by next year and expect to triple their revenues to 1000 crores (from current 330 crores) by FY2012. The statement from the group says that this will lead the groups to break even in the FY2012. The detailed article is here:
http://retail-guru.com/shoppers-stop-eyes-around-rs-1000-crore-revenues-from-hypercity/
Let me bet....I do not see Hypercity breaking even in FY2012. Hypercity will of course have new and creative reasons in 2012. Unless something radical happens, I am sure that I will win my bet. Let me explain.
Expansion helps improve the profits if it leads to better utilisation of existing resources. If a retailer has 5 stores in a city, starting say 3 more could help. The supply chain infrastructure would be more or less the same. The same overheads (city office infrastructure and professionals, buying team, etc) that earlier took care of 5 shops would now take care of 8 shops. The only new cost in opening the 3 stores would be the cost of employees in the store. So, there is a good chance of increasing the net profit for the retailer.
For Hypercity, each location is a large store and has a baggage of huge overhead attached to it. Every individual Hypercity store would have to replicate all these expenses. There would be very little central overhead that would be shared. As mentioned in the article, 60% of the store's sales are foods. Since the food preference is regional in nature the merchandising and the buying team would have to be different for every region, or for that matter every store. Since every store would be in a different city, new supply chain infrastructure would have to be set up.
So, assuming that they follow the same policy, it is difficult to imagine Hypercity making profits with expansion.
McDonald's in India had a model where they limited themselves to around 30 stores in a few pockets for 4 years. They made all the stores profitable, mapped the necessary processes, created the support infrastructure and then had a full blast expansion. McDonald's was a proven global brand. They had most of the processes available and could have implemented the same in India. Their India people were smart and they instead expanded slowly.
At Rs. 330 crores from 7 stores, the current revenue comes to an average of Rs. 45 crores per store. In 2012, when the news release expects Hypercity to break even, the 8 new stores would only be one year old. It would be reasonable (or optimistic) to assume that each of these 7 new stores would also have a revenue of around Rs. 45 crores in 2012. This totals up to Rs. 360 crores. The existing 7 stores would have to get Rs. 640 crores and this comes to more than Rs. 90 crores per store. What we are talking of here is a 100% jump in revenue in just two years. Surprisingly the news release mentions that the strategy would be the same. I am not sure if it is wise to expect the same strategy to yield such amazing hyper growth for Hypercity.
Expansions help improve profits if the basic model is correct. Else the expansion could merely be postponement of the inevitable failure. To use expansion as a way out of losses is a tried and tested methodology and it has almost always led to failure. Somehow business professionals have a scant respect for history and they forget that history repeats itself.
http://retail-guru.com/shoppers-stop-eyes-around-rs-1000-crore-revenues-from-hypercity/
Let me bet....I do not see Hypercity breaking even in FY2012. Hypercity will of course have new and creative reasons in 2012. Unless something radical happens, I am sure that I will win my bet. Let me explain.
Expansion helps improve the profits if it leads to better utilisation of existing resources. If a retailer has 5 stores in a city, starting say 3 more could help. The supply chain infrastructure would be more or less the same. The same overheads (city office infrastructure and professionals, buying team, etc) that earlier took care of 5 shops would now take care of 8 shops. The only new cost in opening the 3 stores would be the cost of employees in the store. So, there is a good chance of increasing the net profit for the retailer.
For Hypercity, each location is a large store and has a baggage of huge overhead attached to it. Every individual Hypercity store would have to replicate all these expenses. There would be very little central overhead that would be shared. As mentioned in the article, 60% of the store's sales are foods. Since the food preference is regional in nature the merchandising and the buying team would have to be different for every region, or for that matter every store. Since every store would be in a different city, new supply chain infrastructure would have to be set up.
So, assuming that they follow the same policy, it is difficult to imagine Hypercity making profits with expansion.
McDonald's in India had a model where they limited themselves to around 30 stores in a few pockets for 4 years. They made all the stores profitable, mapped the necessary processes, created the support infrastructure and then had a full blast expansion. McDonald's was a proven global brand. They had most of the processes available and could have implemented the same in India. Their India people were smart and they instead expanded slowly.
At Rs. 330 crores from 7 stores, the current revenue comes to an average of Rs. 45 crores per store. In 2012, when the news release expects Hypercity to break even, the 8 new stores would only be one year old. It would be reasonable (or optimistic) to assume that each of these 7 new stores would also have a revenue of around Rs. 45 crores in 2012. This totals up to Rs. 360 crores. The existing 7 stores would have to get Rs. 640 crores and this comes to more than Rs. 90 crores per store. What we are talking of here is a 100% jump in revenue in just two years. Surprisingly the news release mentions that the strategy would be the same. I am not sure if it is wise to expect the same strategy to yield such amazing hyper growth for Hypercity.
Expansions help improve profits if the basic model is correct. Else the expansion could merely be postponement of the inevitable failure. To use expansion as a way out of losses is a tried and tested methodology and it has almost always led to failure. Somehow business professionals have a scant respect for history and they forget that history repeats itself.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Vendor Capacity Planning
Boeing has decided to its capacity to produce the super successful Boeing 737 from the current 34 planes a month to 35 planes a month in early 2012. Read the article here:
http://www.dailymarkets.com/stocks/2010/06/16/boeing-boosts-737-production/
It may seem surprising that a 3% hike in capacity (from 34 to 35 planes per month) should take more and 18 months. Unfortunately this scenario exists in many industries. Even though significant opportunities exist, firms are unable to ramp up capacity fast enough to take advantage. In some cases, the demand piles on in the form of backlog. However, in many cases customers gravitate towards less deserving competitors and the demand is lost.
The issue in most cases is that firms ignore to plan the capacities of their vendors. Making a product will need all the items as per the Bill of Materials (BOM). A constraint in even one single BOM component will limit the expansions. The problem here could be as small as water availability at a key vendor or in some cases the disposition of the vendor to expand the business.
A key component in supply chain planning would be to monitor and keep track of the capacity on the supply side. It is necessary for firms to ensure that all the necessary vendors build enough capacity and are able to ensure the necessary supply. The OEM needs to take the lead time to build capacity at its vendors in consideration. Only then can the real increase in output happen.
http://www.dailymarkets.com/stocks/2010/06/16/boeing-boosts-737-production/
It may seem surprising that a 3% hike in capacity (from 34 to 35 planes per month) should take more and 18 months. Unfortunately this scenario exists in many industries. Even though significant opportunities exist, firms are unable to ramp up capacity fast enough to take advantage. In some cases, the demand piles on in the form of backlog. However, in many cases customers gravitate towards less deserving competitors and the demand is lost.
The issue in most cases is that firms ignore to plan the capacities of their vendors. Making a product will need all the items as per the Bill of Materials (BOM). A constraint in even one single BOM component will limit the expansions. The problem here could be as small as water availability at a key vendor or in some cases the disposition of the vendor to expand the business.
A key component in supply chain planning would be to monitor and keep track of the capacity on the supply side. It is necessary for firms to ensure that all the necessary vendors build enough capacity and are able to ensure the necessary supply. The OEM needs to take the lead time to build capacity at its vendors in consideration. Only then can the real increase in output happen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)