I’m on my way to Amsterdam to attend HR2008. This will be the first time this Wispubs conference will be held in Europe. ROC is the premier sponsor and our chairman, Les Hayman, will be one of the keynote speakers. If you are attending come by our booth and to say hi. Leave a comment if you want to get together during the conference.

Watch this space for more on the conference…

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The current economic roller coaster is not as much fun as the Batman at Six flags. The market gyrations and financial market meltdown is definitely no fun and most of us has not experienced this before. The post-2000 dotcom bust now seems like a walk-in-the-park.

I’m sure there are tons of good advice out their. Here are my favorites:

Here is John Doerr’s (Mr VC) top 10 tips, with the HCM Gartner guru, Jim Holincheck sharing his thoughts on the impact on the HCM market (maybe a bit dated), and finally my favorite entrepreneur guy, Guy Kawasaki’s post on the subject from a CEO perspective. This Sequoia capital presentation is very interesting (and potentially depressing) reading.

I belong to Vistage, a global organization for CEOs and their top economist, Brian Beaulieu provided sage advise regarding the next 18 months. Here are a few actionable items for business owners:

• If you have future cash needs. draw down your credit lines and hold the cash.
• Use CDARS (a network of FDIC insured banks) as a way to protect your cash.
• Take all necessary actions to maintain a positive cash flow.
• Retool your management objectives with the understanding that this business cycle has a rise on the other side of the recession. Position your business for the next ascent.
• Lead with confidence and optimism, with the attitude that ???we can beat the business cycle.???
• Find clients in these resilient sectors: healthcare, food distribution, water purification/distribution, electricity, natural gas distribution, consumer non-durables, education (community colleges in particular) and exports.
• Expand internationally, and don???t overlook growing markets in Brazil and Chile.
• Always give your clients a compelling reason to buy from you.

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 SpaceX Falcon 1 launch

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Sep 29, 2008: HCL Technologies is offering 650 pence per share or 50 pence per share more than the Infosys bid. Infosys may counter-bid soon and the bidding could go as high as 700-750 pence per share or almost a $1bn.

Interesting move…what do you think about it?

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Here is what Successfactors had to say about the integration.

The integration of SuccessFactors’ Performance and Talent Management suite with Google Apps collaborative products and other tools enables enterprises of any and all sizes to reap the benefits of Software as a Service and cloud computing (no hardware or software to download, install or maintain), and extends SuccessFactors’ mission to help companies better manage, motivate and engage their people to drive better business results.

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Since I’ve joined, the ROC world has grown to include South Africa, France and obviously now the US. ROC is a company with a vision, a world class management team, and the ability to move very quickly. Great stuff!

I’ll write more soon…

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To quote the Economist report:??

Finding and retaining talent is tough and is??going to get tougher. While a global economic??slowdown???with its attendant lay-offs???may??provide temporary respite in some industries, falling??birth-rates, an increasingly demanding workforce and??greater competition for talent from emerging-market??firms will continue to pile pressure on companies in??the developed world.??

Download the Economist reports here.

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Gostick is the co-author of the recent book, The Levity Effect.

How would you rate yourself on each of the following 10 integrity??characteristics:

1. You know the little things count:??Businesspeople lose their integrity a little bit at a time. To have the Integrity Advantage you do not lie or cheat on the small things.
2. You find the white (when others see gray):??You do not make tough decisions alone. You ask questions, receive counsel and take a long-term view.
3. You mess up, you ‘fess up:??Open and honest disclosure, e.g., Tylenol scare.
4. You create a culture of trust:??You reinforce integrity through principles, controls and personal example and you reward those employees who display personal integrity in their actions. I think it is time for me to read, The Speed of Trust by Covey.
5. You keep your word:??It’s walking the talk and setting the example.
6. You care about the greater good:??What goes around comes around. “Be generous: Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns.” — Ecclesiastes 11:1
7. You’re honest but modest:??Sounds like what Jim Collins calls a level 5 leader. Humble, quiet leaders are also considerate and courteous. They do the little things that win friends and admirers. They: smile and greet coworkers every day, they reflect on how their decisions will affect others, they praise and recognize their employees and even their bosses, they control their tempers, and they allow others to be kind to them.
8. You act like you’re being watched:??I once heard that the definition of character is what you do while your alone. Btw, if you are a leader you are being watched.
9. You hire integrity: Key business principle according to Jack Welch and Warren Buffet. “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”
10. You stay the course: You have ethical consistency and predictability. Your life demonstrates wholeness and harmony between your values and your actions.

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Here is the full text:

Silver Bullets and Basics by Don Swann, CFPIM (published in The Magazine of Manufacturing performance, January 1989)

During World War II a breakthrough concept called Work Simplification promised to unlock the talent and ingenuity of the entire work force.?? It???s premise-the hourly worker, as manager-was a radical departure from conventional approaches.?? Many companies established programs that provided the work force with a vehicle to introduce their ideas for improvements, and to even implement those ideas.?? The publicized cases describe tremendous improvements in throughput and cost performance.

Value Engineering surfaced about this same time frame.?? A professional society of Value Engineers was formed to spearhead this rational and effective technique of designing the product to eliminate processing steps, features, or components whose cost exceeded their value.

We can identify other major innovative concepts that burst on the U.S. manufacturing scene over the years with the promise of revolutionizing the cost and effectiveness of producing goods.?? You can probably add to the list of the techniques that were billed as the next great manufacturing concept.

There are other major concepts and techniques that have captured the imagination of American manufacturing.?? We seem to have the idea that there is a magic elixir or a key formula that can be applied to yield optimal manufacturing performance. The advocates of each idea viewed theirs as the ???Silver Bullet??? that would allow manufacturers to shoot straight and kill all the bad guys.?? And these concepts attracted (and are attracting zealots who are sure that their idea is the True Way.

There are some common characteristics that the Silver Bullets share:

1. They have some impressive successes;
2. They have some dismal failures; and
3. Execution of basic, unglamorous tasks determines their success or failure.

An analogy that readily comes to my mind is the introduction of new formations in football.?? The coach that finished 10-10 last years with the wishbone, switches to the Pro Set and still goes 1-10 seasons.?? The company abandoning a failed MRP project to adopt a JIT approach will find that poor execution is very impartial-it will wreck either approach.

Consultants offer the opportunity to see a diversity of manufacturers, and to help clients to implement many of these different techniques or concepts.?? And each of these concepts has validity in specific environments.?? What we see, in case after case, is that the basics have to be dealt with, no matter how innovative the new concept.

For instance, accurate and controlled inventories are prerequisite for any inventory planning and control system.?? You have heard this or read this observation a dozen times.?? Yet time after time we see companies make substantial investments in new Silver bullets before addressing the basic problem that they have no idea of current inventory balances and have no control of inventory usage.?? One of the basic objectives of these powerful systems is to calculate optimal schedules for production and purchasing.?? Obviously, the questions of what, how much and when to produce and purchase, depend upon knowing how much is currently on hand.

Other basics are typically missing.?? Bills of material are inaccurate.?? Changes to the products and processes are uncontrolled and not communicated.?? Scrap and substitutions are not reported.?? Products are priced and sold before they are specified, designed and cost.?? Silver Bullet tools introduced into these out-of-control environments will not perform properly.?? Most of the Silver Bullets are logical, even ???programmed??? tools and approaches that depend upon inputs that are consistent and reliable.

When substantial improvements are achieved, we point to the Silver Bullet as the source of the gains.?? In two major surveys of MRP implementations, less than 15 percent of MRP users claim to have reached ???class A??? status-they actually run the company using the recommendations produced by the MRP system.?? The over 85 + percent of users falling short of class A status (including class D users-they showed, in a controlled environment, that the system had the capability to function, but no one was actually using the outputs) claim significant improvements in inventory turns, customer services, lead time, and other performance measures.?? The gains have been attributed to MRP.?? But if no one uses the system outputs, how can the system be the reason for improvements?

The improvements attributed to many Silver Bullets stem from the following chain of events:

1. Silver Bullets demand consistent, reliable, controlled inputs;
2. In pursuit of the Silver bullet, companies have to clean up their practices, specifications, and controls; and
3. Once the company is executing the basics correctly, performance improves.

What does all this mean to the manufacturer who knows he must improve his plant???s performance, or his company???s performance??? We are in action-oriented society, and manufacturing managers are in positions of authority because they are take-charge decision makers.?? A Silver Bullet has strong appeal because it is focused, concise, salable program that can championed and promoted.?? A program to ???clean up the basics??? lacks the glamour of a Silver Bullet.

The solution??? Use the Silver Bullet of your choice as a rallying point to build enthusiasm, obtain funding and focus the plant as a team on achieving a specific goal.?? But build into your program the necessary time and funding to perform the basics, because the success or failure of the Silver Bullet will probably depend on the same things, whatever its underlying concepts or breakthrough ideas.??

The Basics include:

• Inventory control
• Conformance to schedules
• Accurate bills of material
• Consistent, controlled, measured processes
• Consistent, controlled, measured materials
• Consistent customer service
• Accurate costs

There are others.?? The Basics that can wet the powder in your Silver Bullet are the ones that you want to address and correct.

The following sequential steps are a simple but realistic formula for correcting the basics:

1. Measure current status-What are your inventory turns??? What is your line item inventory accuracy??? What level is customer service now??? Every subsequent decision that you make regarding the Basics should be targeted toward ???improvement.????? You cannot determine if improvement has occurred unless you measure results.
2. Establish correct procedures ??? People often do an inconsistent job because there has never been a definition of what should be done.
3. Train the users-Procedures in a book do not change results on the floor.
4. Measure compliance-If procedures are not followed; you need edits, control limits, alerts that indicate that procedures are being improperly executed.
5. React to exceptions-When the edits (cycle counts, SPC trends, other exceptions) indicate the Basics are slipping, go the source of the non-compliance and confront the issues.

Maybe in the future we will have a new Silver Bullet with its own acronym, certifications and zealots that promotes the Basics (how about Basic Manufacturing practices or BMP?).?? But with or without a separate label the sink or swim factor for successful Silver Bullets is Basics.

About the Author

Don Swann, CFPIM, is a partner with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in charge of the manufacturing consulting services covering the Southeast.?? He works out of the firm???s Atlanta GA, office. Prior to joining DHS, Mr. Swann was with Owens-Corning Fiberglass as an Industrial Engineer Manager and Factory Supervisor.?? He Holds a B.I.E. degree from Georgia Tech.

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Listed below are some of the best websites from Africa and South Africa. Another good source of African IT news is ITWeb. My friend Thomas Otter writes some very insightful posts about technology in South Africa. Google recently expanded into Africa as well. Google has a specific site for South Africa.

Synthasite??is a site where people can build their own Website, without needing any HTML or programming knowledge.??Synthasite is??a Web 2.0 platform; it uses drag and drop technology, and it???s free. Synthasite also offers free Web hosting and users can download their site onto their own computers. Vinny Lingham is Synthasite???s CEO. He???s also CEO of in Lingham Capital and founded??incuBeta??and??Clicks2Customers.

Ushahidi????? A place to track acts of violence in Kenya. Witnesses report what they???ve seen and where, and Ushahidi logs and maps it. Each reported and verified incident is marked on a map for viewers to see. Ushahidi offers buttons for others to use on their blogs and Websites to help spread the word and attract more users to the site.

Afrigator????? A social media aggregator and directory for African citizens who publish on the Web. Afrigator showcases digital content - a blog, videocast, any site with an RSS feed ??? and markets it to the world. It also scans the Web for African-related tags and pulls them into the site. Categories for content include media, technology, competitions, for fun and HOWTO.

muti????is a social bookmarking site inspired by??reddit??and??digg??but dedicated to Africa. Registered users vote up or down on the content of links submitted by other users. Items can be viewed as hot, stats, new, top, most liked or most viewed.

Amatomu????? tags itself as “the South African blogosphere, sorted.” Users can read blogs about business, technology, news and politics, entertainment, media and marketing, sport, life, humour and religion. Visitors can also search for their favorite bloggers or search for blog posts.

Blueworld??(LassoSoft) ??? A software company producing products to create interactive, data driven Websites. LassoSoft offers a variety of products depending on the customer???s need. The site also has a community area where developers, providers and software enthusiasts can exchange information and ideas.

Zoopedup??is a social networking site for car aficionados to meet and swap photos, videos, stories, tips and information. Members create an online garage for their autos and can also place their ???ride??? in a head-to-head ???battle??? with another car and have fellow users vote for??their favorite. Events are also showcased at zoopedup.

Mamamikes????? Web surfers with family or friends in Kenya or Uganda can send gifts safely and securely to their loved ones using this online service. Shopping vouchers are a popular gift at this site, as are the newly-added cell phone prepaid minutes. Other gift options include flowers, chocolates, restaurant and fuel vouchers, electronics and gifts for newborns.

Afrigadget????? ???Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity.??? Bloggers and readers contribute stories showcasing innovations from around the African continent. These innovations help others overcome challenges faced in everyday life. There are a plethora of categories: Afrigadget, books, communication, energy, food, gadgets, health, how-to, ingenuity, innovator series, jua kali, material, metal, news, sanitation, toys, transportation, water and wood. The site also includes links to gadget sites and blogs of interest.

Clickatell????? The Website of the world???s number one mobile message provider. Visitors to the site can learn about the products, the company, prices, and get product support. Pieter DeVilliers is the CEO and co-founder.

Ananzi????? Devoted to servicing South Africa, Ananzi is a search engine and site directory. Ananzi is a free service to owners of South African Websites and sites of interest to South Africans. It was created in 1996.

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