Management Today articles from May 2008

Management Today archives from May 2008

Editorial: When the glass is half-empty.(Editorial)
May 1, 2008... After almost a decade of wanton expansion, it looks like belt-tightening time has come around. I suppose it was inevitable - a good thing cannot last for ever and the wheel has to turn - but, my god, slowdown is boring. Business is so much...

Contributors.
May 1, 2008... ANTONY BUCK The co-founder of REN Skincare reviews Find Your Lightbulb, by Mike Harris, the brains behind First Direct and Egg. He knows about lightbulbs too: he'd considered starting everything from a fried-chicken shop to a sweet...

Chartered Management Institute: In My Opinion.
May 1, 2008... Dr Tim Brain, Chartered Management Institute Companion and chief constable of Gloucestershire, asks: is there a crisis in police leadership? A few years ago, I was lucky enough to get a place on a top management course with many of the...

The MT Diary.(Management Today)(Republic of Mauritius)
May 1, 2008... Muddling the Mauritians; Chinese conspiracy theory; and why the Fed hugged the Bear. If you tell people you are going to Mauritius for a few days, no-one believes it is for work. So I spent three heavy days in Port-Louis giving serious...

Ten ways to ... maximise your impact.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... 1. Know your goals 2. Trust your strengths 3. Fine-tune your talent radar 4. Build a special culture 5. Network 6. Work the web like a pro 7. Market shrewdly 8. Reward success 9. Dare to be different .. 10.... but be realistic....

It'll never fly: Self-help.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... It's self-evident that with belief, focus and drive we stand a better chance of achieving success. So why are there 46,000 books in Amazon's self-help category, all promising the same thing - to make us rich, happy and successful? The...

Dave's Eco-nomics: Make a roof garden.(on green roofs)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... GREEN ALERT Britain now uses more energy to cool buildings in the summer than to heat them in the winter. As urban areas get hotter, more cramped and polluted, the green roof idea starts to make sense. ACTION PLAN Green roofs have...

Earning curve: Debt.
May 1, 2008... Visa, IPO ('08), pounds 8.9bn UK bank customers, refunds of bank charges ('07, est.), pounds 784m Raymond W McDaniel, CEO, Moody's credit agency ('07), pounds 3.7m Adam Appleyard, pay-off from Northern Rock, pounds 760k Court-service...

Workplace rights: Death penalties.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, introduced last month, has been hailed as the biggest change to health and safety law since the early '70s. Previously, firms could be prosecuted for manslaughter of employees or...

History lessons: People love progress - The Jazz Singer.(Movie review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... By 1927, stars like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin had raised silent film to an art form, with breathtakingly accomplished epics like Keaton's The General. Then Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer, a sentimental potboiler starring...

Your route to the top: Get a bigger budget.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Understand your bosses' needs. Know what your CEO and directors look for, their history of success and failure, and how these now shape their fiscal judgment. Think about what they want for the business overall, not just from this project. ...

How does he manage? Classified website boss - Jim Buckmaster Craigslist.(Interview)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... WHEN DID YOU BECOME A MANAGER? In 2000. I used to live a monkish existence - cutting my own hair, making my own mittens, and living in unheated communal housing. I posted my resume on Craigslist in 1999, looking for programming work in San...

Are you suffering from: Someday syndrome.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Procrastinators know when they are putting things off (eg, the boss has come in for the third time looking for the report that was due yesterday, and is not happy). Someday Syndrome is the thought that one day I will: start my own...

Words-worth: Subprime.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Before 'subprime', there was 'prime', meaning 'first', 'foremost' or 'best'. All these meanings were present in the Latin primus, the ultimate source of the word, although it came to us through French at the close of the 14th century. It...

Remember This.(Quotation)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... 'The attainment of an ideal is often the beginning of a disillusion' - Stanley Baldwin said it. 'Poor fellow, he suffers from files' - Aneurin Bevan said it

Stat of the month: Globalised famine - 130% - The rise in global wheat prices since March 2007.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... The World Food Programme describes it as a 'silent tsunami': a hunger crisis set to hit 100 million people. Soya and corn prices are escalating, while rice has risen 70% on last year - not good when three billion people count it as a...

How he made his pile: Kirit Pathak, indian food magnate.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Who is he? Chairman and CEO of Indian food empire Patak's. He sold the company for an estimated pounds 105m last May to Associated British Foods, becoming chairman of ABF's world foods division. Now 55, he's worth pounds 205m. How did he...

Tim How: If I had to start again ..(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... I'd go back into retail, unquestionably. My father was the MD of Colman's in Norwich, and from my teenage years I knew I'd work in commerce too. Working with wine makes everything fun, but it's not why I went into this business. I like the...

Crash Course in ... Settling commercial disputes.
May 1, 2008... Your contract with a leading supplier has gone wrong and could cause you big losses. It's not just about money - there are serious principles at stake. The other side is not backing down and you've already threatened to see them in court. So...

Masterclass: Hot-desking.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... WHAT IS IT? So many bodies, such expensive space. This was the thought that inspired the trend for hot-desking, the idea that colleagues might not need a desk all to themselves but, with due planning and co-operation, could share a limited...

Decisions: John Stewart - Worlds Apart, Co-founder and 'director of fun' AT the toy-maker.(The Toymaker)
May 1, 2008... MY WORST... We were presenting to giants like Bed Bath & Beyond and JCPenney, working out of hotel rooms and the boot of a car. We persuaded Mattel to give us the licence to make Barbie beds, and Hit Entertainment to give us Bob the...

Behind the spin: Alitalia.
May 1, 2008... THE DILEMMA How to stay alive, is the simple answer. The flagship Italian airline staggers from one month to the next, haemorrhaging cash along the way The company, 49.9% owned by the Italian government, is losing EUR3m a day and has a...

BA really asked for it.(British Airways PLC)
May 1, 2008... Things go wrong when a confident company gets too cocky - witness the airline's Terminal 5 debacle. Too much pride can ruin judgment. British Airways did not hold back when making its claims for the new Terminal 5. It would, the airline...

Books: Democracy vs globalisation.(Book review)
May 1, 2008... National governments are powerless against a superclass of 6,000 individuals who control the levers of power. The author's arguments convince Robert Peston. Reaching for the Valium A large 'hop-off' sign aimed at hedge funds and...

Books: Scraps for the kitchen-table entrepreneur.(Find Your Lightbulb)(Book review)
May 1, 2008... The author has a great track record as a company founder, yet his advice is not so apt for small businesses, says Antony Buck. When a book is subtitled 'How to make millions from apparently impossible ideas', you might expect some sort of...

Books: Three of a Kind - The grammar of body language.(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Body Language Geoff Ribbens and Greg Whitear Hodder Arnold pounds 8.99 Need to know? Body language Carolyn Boyes Collins pounds 9.99 The Nonverbal Advantage Carol Kinsey Goman Berrett-Koehler Publishers pounds 10.99

Books: Attempts to 'fix' the internet could rob it of its vital spark.(The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It)(Book review)
May 1, 2008... For all the good stuff it offers, the unfettered web has a darker side. But a lockdown in the face of fraud and sabotage won't help, says this author. John Naughton agrees. The internet is one of the most amazing things that human beings...

The MT Interview: Joanna Shields.(Interview)
May 1, 2008... A Silicon Valley veteran who was there for the first dot.com boom, she's now here to lead Bebo into a Web 2.0 future with AOL. But can this expert dealmaker and networker make it work? This must go on record as one of the more relaxed MT...

Where the Credit Crash came from.
May 1, 2008... Awash with cash in a low-interest rate climate, the financial institutions started lending with an astonishing disregard for risk. The crisis came when they realised that payback time would never come. Alex Brummer looks across the abyss. ...

Sharpen up your cost control.
May 1, 2008... It's time to get tough and no-one's more ruthless at the job than consultant Andrew Wileman. In an exclusive extract from his book Driving Down Cost, this modern Dark Knight shares his axe-honing tips for managing the human side of business....

Don't look down.(on business management and economic downturns)
May 1, 2008... Even if a downturn is coming, it doesn't have to derail your business. James Taylor explains. Unless you've spent the past six months on a desert island where sub-prime CDOs are just a distant nightmare, you're probably sick of hearing...

Vodka Splashes Out.
May 1, 2008... When Donald Trump launched the golden-bottled 'Trump super-premium vodka' in 2006, it was purported to 'demand the same respect and inspire the same awe' as the man himself. He even unveiled a couple of cool new cocktails: the Trump &...

Truly seamless mobility.
May 1, 2008... Expectations for remote working are rocketing, as the technology for achieving it gets better and cheaper. Facing global demands, companies and individuals must decide how available they want to be Paul Fisher reports. Right. I'm off...

Motor Mouth.(Fiat 500)(Product/service evaluation)
May 1, 2008... Fiat's 500 is cuter than a kitten and has more gadgets than cars at twice the price. Sathnam Sanghera asks, why is it this cheap? Sometimes, people ask me for advice on what car to buy, which makes sense, I suppose, given that I write this...

Table Talk: Where Austen Pickles eats ..(The Fleece)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Whenever there's time, I love to combine working and eating at the Fleece in Addingham, just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It's a real local pub: open fires, stone flags, low beams and a cheerful barman who remembers you. The...

What's your Problem?(on recessions)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Q: How seriously should I take talk of the UK slipping into a recession? I'm starting to get nervous about my job security. Should I be building up my savings? And cut back on the holidays? Compared to some of my friends, I don't have that...

What's your Problem?(employee relations)
May 1, 2008... Q: The person I work next to has a desk loaded with plants. She is frequently away and because I'm the person who sits nearest them, I'm always tasked with watering them in her absence. I didn't mind at first, but it's getting really...

What's your Problem?(managing marriage conflicts)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Q: My husband and I are having some marital problems and I'm finding it hard to get into work each day. With my marriage on the line, work matters seem trivial, and it's difficult to concentrate. I don't know how long this situation is...

First Class Coach.(workplace stress management)
May 1, 2008... Your boss's body language and critical talk will amplify your own susceptibility to stress. Q: We've just been through a massive reorganisation in my department and most people I manage seem to be suffering from stress. To make it worse,...

MCA Management Awards 2008.(Management Consultancies Association)
May 1, 2008... What is it that makes people wary of consultants? Often, consultants are viewed with suspicion by many of those they are commissioned to help. There's a fear that they'll march in, spoon out a dose of nasty medicine and then vanish, leaving...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Platinum Award Winner.(Management Consultancies Association)(Quest Worldwide Ltd.)
May 1, 2008... PLATINUM AWARD WINNER AND INTERNATIONAL CATEGORY WINNER Quest Worldwide with TMD Friction Group TMD Friction was a private-equity buyout gone wrong. Bound for bankruptcy, the automotive supplier was a 'distressed company with...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Best Small firm.(Management Consultancies Association)(Corpra)
May 1, 2008... BEST SMALL FIRM, AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT CATEGORY WINNER CORPRA - With the association of accounting technicians (AAT) Walk into the Association of Accounting Technicians' shiny new premises, on Aldersgate Street in central London, and...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Best Private Sector Project.(Management Consultancies Association)(Sagentia)
May 1, 2008... BEST PRIVATE SECTOR PROJECT, INNOVATION CATEGORY AND TECHNOLOGY CATEGORY WINNER SAGENTIA - With Vodafone Giving people easier access to finance is one of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. But the real problem is money...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Best Public Sector Project.(Management Consultancies Association)
May 1, 2008... WINNER: ATOS CONSULTING - With the Department for International Development The outrageous wealth and lavish lifestyles of Russian oligarchs are only part of post-Soviet history. Severe economic decline, poverty and social exclusion has...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Business Strategy.
May 1, 2008... WINNER: ERNST & YOUNG - With Sony Professional Solutions Europe Sometimes, being successful is just not enough. Sony's European business-to-business operation, Professional Solutions Europe (PSE), is its most profitable electronics division...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Human Resources.(MCA Management Awardee)
May 1, 2008... WINNER: DELOITTE - With T-Mobile UK In the autumn of 2006, mobile network T-Mobile UK had a call to make Newly appointed CEO Jim Hyde and his senior team needed to translate T-Mobile's organisational vision quickly into a detailed,...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Corporate Social Responsibility.
May 1, 2008... WINNER: PIPC - With ITV Who'd be a TV company boss these days? If your staff aren't protesting about being relocated, your viewers are complaining about phone-in scandals or illegal production waste dumped at location shoots. ITV's...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Marketing.
May 1, 2008... WINNER: PROPAGANDA - With The Car People To distance itself from pile-'em-high, sell-'em-cheap car supermarkets, The Car People asked Propaganda to help differentiate it in a congested sector. A big ask, as the company was generally...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Operational Performance.
May 1, 2008... WINNER: PA CONSULTING GROUP - With OGCbuying.solutions It's an awful lot of money, but pounds 6bn is what the Government's Gershon Efficiency Review reckons the public sector - from primary schools to central government departments - could...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Outsourcing.
May 1, 2008... WINNER: NAVIGANT CONSULTING - With Skandia The Indians called him the 'little devil', according to Tim Mann, customer service and IT director of insurer Skandia UK. He's referring to Warwick Clews, the lead consultant at Troika (now part...

MCA Management Awards 2008: Summary of Results.(Awards list)
May 1, 2008... WINNERS, FINALISTS AND SHORTLISTED FIRMS INTERNATIONAL WINNER - Quest Worldwide with TMD Friction Group (see p3) FINALIST - Atos Consulting with Department For International Development (see p9) SHORTLISTED - Ernst & Young with New...

The Sharp End: A swell day's dredging.(fishing scallops)
May 1, 2008... Invited to fish for scallops in Cornish waters, Dave Waller dons his dad's wellies. From Captain Ahab to Jaws' Police Chief Brody, man has always enjoyed a good scrap at sea. Now I'm being sent to Cornwall to fish for scallop, the...