Management Today articles from August 2004

Management Today archives from August 2004

All flair but little acumen?
August 1, 2004... Fashion is a closed world to most of us in business - an arcane glamfest of catwalk anorexics, tantrums and tiaras, the financial end of which is shrouded in obscurity. So where does the British fashion industry fit into the world picture? In a...

Contributors.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... ROBERT CARRUTHERS After eight years of covering the business of fashion, mostly for industry bible Drapers, the author of MT's cover story sees a new commercialism emerging on Britain's catwalks: 'Our designer talent is not in question,...

In my opinion: Chartered Management Institute.
August 1, 2004... Chartered Management Institute companion Sue Street, permanent secretary at the DCMS, believes the priority of bosses is to earn staff loyalty I shouldn't start an article like this. But do you really want to read any more theories about...

The MT diary: Howard Davies.(Management Today)
August 1, 2004... Missing Canary Wharf; bank mergers on the way; bravely into China; referendum ploy It is almost a year since I left the Financial Services Authority, and I can say that the spasms of nostalgia for Canary Wharf have been few and far...

Brain food: Ten ways to ... be a good agency.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... 1. Be creative, but not for its own sake 2. Think bolder than your client would 3. Stay small enough to give personal service 4. Get inside your client's socks 5. Know many things that your clients don't 6. See every brief as a way to...

Brain food: It'll never fly - Congestion charging.(traffic control measures)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... It was meant to be the Great Congestion Charge Chaos of London. The capital's population would wake up on 17 February 2003 to motor mayhem as mayor Ken Livingstone's road toll plan was put into practice. Feeder roads around the C-zone would...

Brain food: Unlikely managers - Lifeguard. Jason Benniman, Brighton seafront.(Brief Article)(Interview)
August 1, 2004... When did you become a manager? In 1998, when I started work as a fitness instructor in South Africa. I did a pool lifeguard course in 1999 and worked as a lifeguard in Cape Town. It's my first season on Brighton beach. What does...

Brain food: Earning Curve - Boats.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
August 1, 2004... Peter Ratcliffe, CEO, P&O Princess ('02) pounds 2,504,768 Captain, Royal Navy, p.a pounds 65,218-pounds 72,083 Cruise director, liner, per month pounds 3,800-pounds 7,500 Ship-builder, UK, p.a. pounds 14,000-pounds 25,000 Waitress, Queen...

Brain food: Workplace rights - Employer or adviser?(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... It's well known that employers have a duty to ensure the health and safety of their staff. But what about their financial security? Many organisations operate remuneration schemes containing small-print conditions on the ability of employees to...

Brain food: Look after the pennies - Schlepping in Seattle.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... It began as an adventure in October 2000, when Seattle's Public Utilities water meter readers started using six dollars 5,000 Segways. These self-balancing, electric-powered, stand-on scooters have since become the preferred mode of transport....

Brain food: Your route to the top - Work overload.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Stop and think. It's easy to panic and launch yourself at the task without considering the most sensible course of action. A few moments' reflection and planning pay off. Break the situation down into chunks. Picturing the whole task makes...

Brain food: Words-worth - Phishing.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... If you hear your IT department talking about 'fishing', don't yawn. It's really 'phishing' - and it's a serious problem for any firm doing business online, especially banks. In phishing, fraudsters create a copy of a website, then send out bulk...

Brain food: Are you suffering from - Male answer syndrome.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Have you noticed that men always have an answer? There's no such thing as 'I don't know' or 'I have no opinion'. Men specialise in bite-sized answers that may or may not be based in reality, though they speak with great authority. Experts...

Brain food: We'd love that job - Sports photographer. Marc Aspland, The Times.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... What do you do? I photograph all the great sporting events. As a British newspaper, The Times has to cover the whole gamut: I went to Euro 2004 and I'm off to the Olympics this month. The bigger the football match, the more emotionally...

Brain food: Remember this.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... 'He who rejects change is the architect of decay' HAROLD WILSON SAID IT 'The secret of business is to know something nobody else knows' ARISTOTLE ONASSIS SAID IT

Brain food: Sir John Tusa - If i had to start again ..(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... I'd have insisted that the BBC board of governors interview me for the post of director-general in 1991. They would have at least had to listen to an alternative philosophy for the BBC from the one they later got under John Birt and came to...

Brain food: How he made his pile - Roman Abramovich, Oil baron and owner of Chelsea FC.(Football Club)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Who is he? Britain's richest man, since he moved here from Russia in 2003. How did he earn his millions? The shy 37-year-old made pounds 7.5 billion through oil trading in western Siberia, and Sibneft, Russia's fastest-growing...

Brain food: Us and them - Malaysia.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Malaysia has undergone a dramatic economic transformation over the past 30 years. By the late 1990s, it had switched from being a producer of raw materials, such as palm oil and rubber, to a multi-sector economy, achieved largely by a...

Brain food: Speaking out - Charles Dunstone, CEO, The Carphone Warehouse Group.(Chief Executive Officer)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Having had two underwhelming customer experiences at Carphone Warehouse, I was prepared to dislike Dunstone. Why, when I'd registered complaints on post-sale questionnaires, had no-one called me? Within a few moments of speaking at the...

Brain food: How to get ahead in - The Civil Service.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... 1. Graduates should apply to one of the Fast Stream schemes: General, GCHQ and Economist require a 2:2 degree; Statistician requires a 2:1. 2. Selection is tough. Be prepared for a barrage of psychological questionnaires, 'e-tray...

Brain food: The slogan doctor - Morgan Stanley: One client at a time.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... The investment bank's slogan makes no effort to describe its range of activities. It assumes - probably correctly - that potential customers know that already. Instead, the slogan, introduced two years ago as part of a Leo Burnett ad campaign,...

Brain food: Crash course in ... Running a division.
August 1, 2004... It's the call you've been waiting for: that vacant divisional director's job that you applied for is yours. It's a crucial rung on the ladder to the chief executive's job. It's vital that you make a convincing and confident start. So how do...

Brain food: MT Masterclass - Mission statements.(Management Today)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... What are they? A good mission statement describes in a few words what your business or organisation is about, and what it intends to be. It will make sense, be written in plain language and will ring true with employees and customers. But those...

Brain food: Decisions - Keith Edelman, Arsenal Football Club, Managing Director of the Premiership League winners.
August 1, 2004... MY BEST... I decided to persevere with finding funding for the new Arsenal stadium in Islington. By the end of April 2003 a number of banks had turned us down and we were about pounds 100 million short of what we needed to finance the...

Brain food: Behind the spin - The BBC.(British Broadcasting Corporation)
August 1, 2004... THE DILEMMA It's close to crunch time for the BBC, whose royal charter runs out in December 2006. Its recently announced charter submission, Building Public Value, heralded the start of a campaign to convince the Government that the pounds...

The gambler inside ..(the corporate executives)
August 1, 2004... The tussle for M&S highlights the temptations that come with privileged information What do Piers Morgan, Jeffrey Archer and Stuart Rose have in common? The flamboyant former editor of the Daily Mirror, one of the country's most...

Let's all resign at once.(after that holiday and search for a new job)
August 1, 2004... Britain needs a National Resignation Day to encourage people to find satisfying jobs It's summertime and the living is easy. Well, a bit easier, anyway. August in the UK may not approach French levels of relaxation, but we might eat...

Techno life.(gizmos)
August 1, 2004... Barry Cook, managing director of ad agency Leo Burnett, London, is such a music junkie he's already on his second i-Pod. He ran out of space on his first one and had to buy the bigger model. He uses his Apple i-Book to feed his insatiable...

Books: Primer or refresher, yes, but no substitute for school.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... High claims are made for this book in offering a 'complete course' in finance and business management, but Craig Smith believes there are better places to go. The Shorter MBA; Barrie Pearson and Neil Thomas; Profile pounds 15; MT price...

Books: On the bedside table of Adam Applegarth.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... 'I'm reading Catilina's Riddle by Steven Saylor. It's part of Saylor's 'Gordianus' series, all mysteries set in the dying days of the Roman Empire, with Gordianus as the lead character. In this book, Gordianus, still being mentored by Cicero,...

Books: How serving the poorest can bring rich rewards.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid; By CK Prahalad; Wharton School Publishing pounds 21.99; MT price pounds 18.99: to order, visit www.mtmagazine.co.uk Professor Prahalad's visionary work suggests ways in which firms might establish...

Books: The cheats in our midst.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Dark Side of Behaviour at Work; By Adrian Furnham and John Taylor; Palgrave Macmillan pounds 25; MT price pounds 23: to order, visit www.mtmagazine.co.uk Dishonesty at work is all the firm's fault, argues this book. Henry Stewart...

Books: The book that shook - Clare Hart.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... 'I enjoyed Ronald Alsop's The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation. He discusses in detail the cultural issues of a company, while looking at the brand as one of the most important aspects. At Factiva, we've worked a lot on building our...

The fashion business: Can Britain cut it?
August 1, 2004... Burberry has changed from a dowdy mac-seller into a global luxury success and Paul Smith is a home-grown international hit, but UK designer fashion has still to shrug off its cottage industry status Robert Carruthers reports. When Marcel...

The MT Interview: Victoria Barnsley.(Management Today)
August 1, 2004... The founder of Fourth Estate made a million selling her acclaimed niche publisher to UK number three HarperCollins - and took the top job there. An entrepreneur at heart, she relishes signing big-buck deals with celebs like David Beckham, Greg...

How to be a First-time Manager.
August 1, 2004... There's more to being in charge than extra cash and a new office. You are judged by your team's success - and you must keep the boss happy, says Andrew Saunders At last! The promotion you've been working so hard for has finally come your...

The Great Holiday Camp Makeover.
August 1, 2004... Butlins and Pontin's may conjure up images of a Britain that no longer exists, but in their brave new 21st-century world, chalet is a dirty word, as Emma de Vita reports Think of Butlins and what springs to mind? Hi-De-Hi's Gladys Pugh,...

Survey of Surveys: Recruitment.
August 1, 2004... For headhunters, NHS expansion helped offset the IT contract slump. Now rising job vacancies promise good fee earnings - if agencies can locate the talent, says Matt Farquharson The UK recruitment industry is the most developed and...

MT Business Travel: Room Service - Where Phil Reed stays ..(Management Today)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
August 1, 2004... FOR BUSINESS I visit New York roughly once every three months, and I always stay at the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue. I used to stay at a more budget hotel down the road but it was awful, especially when I was staying there over weekends...

MT Business Travel: On The Road.(Management Today)(Buyers Guide)
August 1, 2004... The stylishly furnished Fiat Panda 1.2 Dynamic flaunts a little charm amid its functionality If you've ever enjoyed a budget Mediterranean holiday, chances are you will have encountered that rental favourite, the Fiat Panda. Almost...

MT Business Travel: Frequent Flyer.(Management Today)
August 1, 2004... ADRIAN COX'S GUIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO HOW TO GET THERE I usually fly from Heathrow with Virgin Atlantic - I'm more successful at getting upgrades with Virgin than with BA. The plane arrives in San Francisco International after a 10-hour...

What's Your Problem?
August 1, 2004... Q: Before he left, my old boss told me there were significant pay differences in my team and that I was paid 20%-30% less than my colleagues, including one junior to me. My appraisals have been positive and I have recently received praise,...

First-Class Coach.(workplace competition)
August 1, 2004... Q: My colleague and I are both ambitious, and tend to compete with each other. We even try to undermine each other where possible. I feel I should try to rise above this as I'm keen for promotion, but don't know how to break the cycle of...

MT business lifeforms: The IT Director - Paul Myers, Sipsco Plc.(Management Today, Information Technology)(Biography)
August 1, 2004... Every once in a while and strictly for kicks, Charles Williams, the CEO, will ask his IT director Paul Myers what he thinks of something vaguely abstruse, arty and creative. Invariably, the latter starts with: 'Well, it's not really my area,...