I’ve had a lot of things on my mind since returning from an enlightening trip to Egypt. Traveling to ancient worlds tends to focus and refocus your thoughts and leads you to hone in on certain ideas about life and strategies.

For the last 34 years, I’ve been very fortunate in that I have had an opportunity to work in supply chain consulting for many of the most successful companies in the world – to interact with their executives and to learn.

As I reflect on what I’ve learned, two words come to mind to describe the secret of success. These two words are "High Intensity." This is clearly a work-in-progress, but let me share with you my current thinking on the Top 7 High Intensity Principles:

1. High intensity flows from being strategic, focused and purposeful.

 

2. It is always accompanied by a passionate pursuit of meaningful goals.

 

3. It demands speed, responsiveness, flexibility and agility.

 

4. It requires the fulfillment of expectations throughout the organization and the supply chain.

 

5. It will spread throughout an organization or supply chain when there is alignment around a shared consistent vision.

 

6. It nets substantial growth.

 

7. High intensity begets success, low intensity does not.

This is certainly a time to tap into the principles of high intensity; the world needs great energy and concentration as we continue to recover from the Great Recession. Living off the past and continuing with low intensity strategies will never result in successful economies, supply chains, or individuals.

I’ll delve deeper in high intensity in my next two blog posts, as well as expand a little on what I learned in Egypt. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on this concept and how it applies to your life and your organization.

Go!Go!Go!

Jim

Photo credit: quatro.sinko

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. Great motivating phrases, but would you recognize an opportunity if someone dangled it right in front of your face? Most of us would like to think so.

Well, let’s test this theory. An opportunity has been forming right under your nose, but you may have missed it because you were focused on doom, doom, and more doom.

Although for the past several months we’ve been hanging out in this dreary, dark economic hole that we fell into, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. For now, you just need to make sure that you reach the end of the tunnel by seizing the right opportunities.

This is a great time to be in business because the doom is starting to lift, and we are on the uphill. Don’t believe it? Here are the top five reasons why now is the most exciting time to be in business.

1) There is no new normal.
What I mean is that the pace of change is so rapid, there is no time for complacency. This is very exciting if you are one of the movers and shakers. However, if you are a wall flower, you may want to get out of the way, because the wall is about to fall and you don’t want to be underneath. Know your direction and take action. Don’t stand there waiting for someone to ask you to dance. Get at the head of the conga line and make everyone else follow you.

 

Make sure your supply chain has substantial flexibility and modularity to succeed and thrive, along with supply chain visibility, and the possibilities will be endless.

 

2) Your weaknesses are staring you in the eye.
How great is it to be aware of your weaknesses? From my perspective, it’s really great. I like to know my weaknesses, before it’s too late. This gives me time to be proactive and prepare for the future.

 

Like with the Bernie Madoff situation, the economic downturn revealed numerous vulnerabilities that led to even greater problems. Repairing a crack in the Hoover Dam would be a lot easier than rebuilding it. Take the time to patch up the areas that need the most work now so that you are not fighting against the current as the recession ends.

 

3) You can put your best foot forward – OK, right foot, now, left foot.
As we climb out of the recession, it’s an uphill struggle. As you huff and puff to make it to the top, it may be easy to forget that your competition is struggling too. However, now is the most opportune time to get ahead of your competition. The best way to do this is by knowing what you are up against and understanding what it is that will put you ahead in the race. Evaluate your competition and stay at least one step ahead.

 

4) You control your destiny.
You can sit on your hands and wait to see what happens, or you can get out there and create your own destiny. Keep up to date on what’s going on in the economy as a whole and know what’s going on in your industry. For example, the supply chain challenges food and beverage industry executives due to many issues like new FDA regulations, not to mention the changes in consumer habits due to tighter food budgets as a result of economic pressures. Usher in smart strategies and processes for your industry and your business. You can check out the Executive Briefing that I recently wrote on "The Great Comeback," which will help you create a plan and be more prepared, no matter what your industry.

 

5) Did you think any of the above metaphors were a little too cheesy? Well, here’s one for you: America’s Got Talent. And I mean lots of it.
What’s been happening to all of the folks who make up the high percentage of unemployment? They’re waiting to hear from you. As the economy rode the down slopes, we tried to encourage companies to keep their talent, but many continued with layoffs for various reasons. Now, here we are on the lift, and you can pick up some really talented passengers.

 

Stay positive as you create your Comeback Plan. Keep these five exciting reasons in mind and be open to new opportunities. In the end, you’ll be on top, leading others out of the recession.

Go!Go!Go!

Jim

Photo credit: conanil

You’ve had the secret weapon to beating the Great Recession all along. What you need to do now is remove it from hiding, read the user manual, and customize it to your industry sector and company.

In my last blog post, I talked about why we are on the uphill climb to economic recovery. Now I want to talk about developing and using your secret weapon – a Comeback Plan. This should be an actual concrete (while flexible) plan and you need to launch it now – even if you believe that your company’s recovery is a year away. Any delays now can have a major and lasting long-term effect on your organization’s health.

In short, think about the current marketplace, your competition, what you are going to do when the market returns to "normal," how your business is currently performing, and build a plan that will help your company prosper when the time is right.

If you pull this plan out of your arsenal at the right moment, you will blow away your competition and become a leading contender in your industry sector.

The most successful Comeback Plan includes the "Five Steps to Recovery and Growth" (click to watch a video on this topic.) 

Step 1: Environmental Assessment:
Examine the impacts that the following factors are having and will have on your business. These are indicators of when your market will grow.

Step 2: Competitive Intelligence:
Know your competition. What have they done in response to the recession and what are they likely to do going forward? Have they hunkered down or have they raised the competitive bar? Think about how they will respond to what you do and vice versa. Understanding your competitors and staying ahead of their next move will put you in the lead.

Metaphorically speaking, keep in mind that if you are with a group of people in the woods and a bear starts chasing you, you don’t have to be faster than the bear; you just have to be faster than the slowest person. It pays to know what you are up against.

Step 3: Comeback Expectations:
The more you read and understand about the economic recovery, the more prepared you will be. Understand the timing and magnitude of your company’s Comeback from the recession, given marketplace demand and response from your competition. Know when your turning points are and what your recovery lead time and future volumes will be. Although forecasts are not entirely reliable, it’s good to have the full picture in mind when thinking about your company’s Comeback.

Step 4: Organizational Analysis:
This step is about knowing the capabilities of your organization and determining how your organization compares to others (click here to learn more about the process of benchmarking and best practices) performing the same processes. What process upgrades do you need to deploy in order to not only recover, but to also gain market share, grow and prosper? What are the process upgrades that you need to have in place after the recession to enhance customer satisfaction, increase capital efficiency, increase profitability and increase long-term shareholder value?

This is about knowing where you stand, and again, knowing how you compare to your competition. Take into account what you learned during the recession and employ a formal process of global supply chain best practices and benchmarking.

Step 5: Define a Comeback Plan:
After thinking through each of the previous four steps, it is time to create a list of process upgrades that need to occur to allow you to gain market share, grow and prosper. This may not be easy. Many times you will need to plan ahead for lead times of these implementations, and being too cautious or too slow as your organization begins to pull out of the recession could prove to be reckless.

Build and brandish your secret weapon now by creating your Comeback Plan before your competition gets wind of your mission. Keep your eye on the target and Go!Go!Go!

Jim

More on how to build your secret weapon:

Download the new Executive Briefing, The Great Comeback From the Recession: Your Company’s Secret Weapon – Create Your Plan, Reduce Future Risks and Pull Ahead of the Competition.

 

Watch video of a recent live presentation.

Watch for parts 3 and 4 of this Great Comeback blog series in the coming days.

Photo credit: Bogdan Suditu

Here we are in October, moving quickly toward 2010 with hopes and thoughts of economic recovery. So where is this "Great Comeback" that I’ve been talking about? A good question to which I have an equally good answer.

Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes (or worse) at me, let me say that it is happening – we’re on the steep uphill climb, although it may seem hard to believe with the dismal unemployment figures and projections just released. It is a bitter pill to swallow at this point in the recovery process.

We can choose to focus on the negative or the positive, and in the supply chain consulting process with clients and with others, I focus on this message. To keep your company and your supply chain healthy and growing on a global scale, it is clear that the best option is to remain focused on the positive.

Consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of total economic activity, increased in August by the largest amount in nearly eight years. Manufacturing expanded for the second straight month in September, and construction also inched up a notch. Sales of existing homes also showed a gain, rising 6.4% in August. Additionally, corporate profits are beginning to move in the right direction. And just the other day, a Business Roundtable survey of top U.S. chief executives revealed that although they are not ready to hire more staff or increase capital spending, the majority expect their sales to rise over the next six months.

Do these figures signal a quick, robust recovery? No, but they do prove that we are on the uphill climb. The one thing that company leaders absolutely must remember at this stage is that lead changes always occur on the uphill. Always. This is the case in great races such as the Tour de France and in the business world and life in general.

Developing a Great Comeback Plan now, while we are on the uphill, ensures that organizations not only survive the recession but also grow and return even stronger once the race is finished. If you make the climb uphill clutching a solid Comeback Plan, I guarantee that you will pass the competition and live to tell the story of how your organization made it through and grew stronger by focusing on the positive and planning during the recovery phase.

More on how to start your Great Comeback Plan:

Download the new Executive Briefing, The Great Comeback From the Recession: Your Company’s Secret Weapon – Create Your Plan, Reduce Future Risks and Pull Ahead of the Competition.

Watch video of a recent live presentation.

See you on the uphill. Go!Go!Go!

Jim

Photo credit: Allie Caulfield

I’ve been saying for a while now, with a little trepidation mixed with excitement, that "the new norm is that there is no new norm."

What does that really mean? I want to look closer at this phrase in our monthly installment of Supply Chain Jargon. And please bear with me here as I get a bit philosophical.

Working under the intense economic pressures we’re all experiencing now, "the new norm is that there is no new norm" means there’s no reliable understanding of what the future has in store.

It means forecasts aren’t really all that useful anymore, which brings to mind the mildly sarcastic headline from an August edition of The Wall Street Journal: "Forecast: Next Year Will Arrive in 2010-ish." Not even the unbreakable march of time seems certain when so much is up the air.

If there are no norms, then that’s your new norm: Drop everything, forget what’s right in the past, and assess today’s new set of limitless possibilities.

If the new norm is that there is no new norm, then what is possible? The impossible is now possible. The ancient Greeks said that there was poetry in talking about the impossible while never saying anything except the truth. Are you doing today what you thought was impossible yesterday, all the while realistically understanding and assessing the changes in your industry? If so, I’m sure the work you’re doing now doesn’t feel like poetry. I’m guessing that, without any norms to guide us, it feels pretty messy and out of control.

Yet there is a certain level of excitement to it: Once this recession ends, there will be more amazing things being developed than we can even imagine right now. That messy work now will look like poetry later, when it pays off!

With all of this in mind, I think we can also look at the word ‘impossible’ and redefine it. It’s a word we use often to describe something we don’t believe can happen, but the impossible is happening now. Businesses are finding new ways to reinvent themselves and considering different strategies (including a renewed focus on supply chain strategy), products and ways of operating that would never have occurred to them before.

Are my impressions accurate? What are you doing today in your job and in leading your company that you thought was impossible in the past? What should you be doing now? How are you going to grow your company through opportunities presented in this recession? How are you providing leadership with scenario planning instead of single dimensional budget planning?

Next week in my blog, I’ll be presenting some concrete ways to plan, recover and prosper as you implement your Great Comeback Plan.

Go!Go!Go!

Jim