Top 12 Management trends of the Decade - analyzed by me!

Posted by: OS GIKEN on Jan 06, 2010
As always I'm forever looking through websites trying to gain understanding of most things in life like the number 42 etc. I love learning new things, as this not only brightens me up, it also gives me a feeling of superiority over all you ants in my kingdom.

Now, I'll look at what managers did over the last decade as compiled by a Harvard study not too long ago, here's the link.

So, 12 noticeable trends managers could not keep their grubby paws from...

1.   Shareholder Value as a Strategy. This eclipsed all else. What about customers? - a great question they ask here, what about the customers, more still, what about the staff? Some companies allow staff to become shareholders, whether you have 1 share or a million, you're a shareholder. But, your decision or opinion in matters does not count as much as that of a shareholder having 1 million shares...sorry, its business as usual!

2.  IT as a Utility. The cloud. - Using IT to leverage the business to new grounds has ALWAYS been the case, not only for this decade, but for as long as I can remember, business is built around IT, which is wrong as we were taught in Honors classes, but when you look at what's driving a thriving Silicon Valley business today, its the technology, believe it or not, but Google was built on the idea of a technology that could be exploited, the business side of it all came after they found out how to make one search yield 10 million records!

3.  The Customer Chorus. Brought to you by social networking.  - I see this growing more in South Africa, although we are not ready for it, take HelloPeter for instance, giving the customers the chance to voice opinions is on the rise, whether something is done about it is a totally different story all together. The revolutionary FaceBook, people going for job interviews will find the interviewer will know more about them than they let out in their CV...FB is being used by companies to head hunt, listen to customer complaints, customer ideas and even interact and used as a free medium for advertising, if you have a business and it's not on FB utilizing that free advertising, you are herewith declared mad!

4.  Enterprise Risk Management. None too soon. - Let's not stay on this for too long, where was the Risk Management when the banks gave people loans for houses they could not afford, or when the UAE had to bail out Abu Dhabi when it almost hit a major property hurdle? Funny that this is 4th, should have been 12th!

5.  The Creative Organization. Innovation matters.  - Apple and Google is a prime example. Remember the times not too long ago when it was all Apple and Microsoft? Microsoft got kicked off the bench it was warming for Google - the leaders in innovation, this innovation brings about revenue like never seen before, gone are the days of pure manufacturing revenue - innovative companies will last any recession, go look at Apple and Google's numbers for the past year...growth hormones anyone?

6.  Open Source. Community resources beyond software. - There was a time, I think it was 2 or 3 years ago when OS was big, very big, laws and everything were changed to accommodate more competition within the community. The biggest drawback for OS is the fact, I repeat, the fact that most systems or applications have little to no support in SA. And, OS can only go so far with the "its free" campaign, because its not - OS is a great tool, great way to save money, but is it worth the hassle - 2 companies I've worked for in 8 months tried to go the OS route, it did not succeed simply because there was no adequate support for the applications, get this, 1 support guy in the whole of Cape Town for one system...and his rate per hour makes up for the free(dom) you got!

7.  Going Private. SOX workaround. - Ah, Sarbanes Oxley! Make sure when you get audited you're on the right side of who's law?

8.  Behavioral Economics. Freakonomics, anyone? - Economies of scale matched to behavior of clients, customers, staff...business is a dirty game indeed!

9.  High Potentials. Nurture, nurture, nurture. - It struck me with shock that most companies put a stop to training in the first 3 quarters of 2009...how dare they!

10.  Competing on Analytics. Well beyond the gut level. - How far can you go, really, the bread has crumbs, and a crust, made of dough butter, which comes from the cow that's on the farmer's farm, eating Canada green grass etc.

11.   Reverse Innovation. R&D closer to global markets.  - Can someone please come do this is Africa? People export fresh produce, but their people starve everyday, others have a flourishing black market for blood diamonds, but their people die in the process never knowing the end product of their labour!

12.   Sustainability. Green is good.  - Green is a money making scheme in my opinion, but as suggested, it’s good, not great!

OS over and out - there you have it, analyzed, dumped, duped, shaken and stirred - as always the shareholders at the top are more important that the company itself, strange isn't it?