Business Done Write

Oranges and Apples

2011-08-09T11:36:00.000-04:00

A farmer planted an orange tree and when it bore the fruit he invited people to come and pick the oranges and buy them. The people in the community came and said that the oranges were not what they wanted as the oranges were too sour. They said that they wanted apples because they would be sweeter than the oranges. So the farmer pulled all the oranges off the tree and secured apples to the branches of the tree to make it an apple tree and invited the community back. Everyone loved the apples and promised to be back next season for more sweet apples.

The problem was that the next season, the farmers tree produced oranges instead of apples.

This parable follows a core belief that I have about "Roots and Fruits". The root will determine the fruit not the other way round. We can easily mask the fruits but inevitably the same fruits will return. So many businesses and leaders in business miss this important truth and principle. A company may be able to pretend and show profitability for a period or season, but inevitably the companies results will continue.

What is core in the business and how it operates and generates decisions will be the evidence that is seen. If a business or business leader wishes for a change, like the farmer would have to plant a new tree for the different fruit, the business needs to look at changing the root issues. This will bring about long term and sustainable change.

Change the root and not the fruit!

Cash flow.

2011-07-28T07:58:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I started to discuss the epidemic that we are seeing in the western business circles. Reduce costs to boost profits! With payroll the largest cost to companies, it is understandable that this is one of the first areas that companies look to reduce costs.

The picture at the moment in the western society is that as unemployment is raising, so is the ability for the consumers (bigger spenders than businesses) to continue spending. The long term view that companies need to take weighs and balances the costs versus the income needed to stay sustainable. With an unemployment of 10%, out of 50 houses in a street, 10 are greatly affected in their ability to pay bills. This will greatly effect their ability to pay for more than the essentials. As they stop spending money and reduce their budget, the companies in the area start to make less profit meaning that they will need to reduce their staff further. The unemployment and profits of companies go hand in hand heading in opposite directions. Higher unemployment = Lower profits! It is a growing trend, snow ball effect that eventually will tip over with company's closing their doors and even higher unemployment.

I believe than Human assets are the greatest asset of any company and need to be treated as that. I also believe that if nothing is done fast to hugely change the trend in Western Society, their will be no more profits for companies!

Company of men

2011-07-27T07:08:00.000-04:00

A shipping company built by years of hard work starts to reduce work force to increase profits!

This seems to be the way many businesses seem to look at profits in the western business world. By reducing a companies costs should increase the profits? As much as this does have the intended effect, business these days seems to be driven to succeed for just the next quarter!

I heard years ago that in some businesses, they had a 200 year business plan! When you take 200 years into account, what does it mean that you only increased profit by 1% this quarter, if you compounded this over 200 years, this company would be a company that I would love to hold stock in as the price I pay today for this stock is only a small fraction of the return I will get from this company.

In closing, as unemployment continues to stride higher, as companies shrink their workforce to make more profit this month, what are the long term consequences of their action?

The First!

2011-07-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

I am incredibly excited to be setting this blog up. I have been very successful in business and learnt many things through the years and the locations that I have been in.

I have been affected by many people and and my perceptions have been challenged growing all the time. There have been many changes in my life, however one thing that has never changed is God and the role He plays in this world. I have learnt that there are principles in this world, things that we can not get away from, principles that have been the same since the start of the planet.

Are we fighting these principles or working with them?