What Does Louis Viton Moet Hennessy KNOW? – #34

  • What Does Louis Viton Moet Hennessy KNOW? – #34

    Could it be, that LVMH practices all the factors that are described in our BLOGS to retain their position as the world’s largest luxury group by sales? They have identified that wealthy Millenials are shifting their money from goods to exploits. In light of this demographic and consumer shift to travel experiences and exploits, LVMH evaluated and confirmed their data. Once they had confirmed the data they acted quickly to avoid missing a market opportunity.

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  • What do you know about your IRA or 401K? – #33

    Can you tell me what accounts is your IRA or 401K is invested in? Or do you look at your periodic statements to see if your going up/down or staying even. For the last 10 years the statements looked pretty good following the year 2008 which destroyed many accounts by 30-50% in one of the worst stock-market performances in many a year. Recently our periodic look has seen some phenomenal growth, but then on the last day of November we erased all the market gains for 2018. Very few of us had done anything to anticipate this sudden shift and more often than not we took very little action in terms of adjusting our portfolio. Why is that?

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  • By Gosh – The Real Car Guy Is Gone! – #31

    1999 was a great year as Carlos Ghosn took over a very distressed Nissan Motors as Chairman of the Board and CEO. For me personally, it was great in that Mr. Ghosn brought back the “Z” a few years after he was in the job. I bought one (My 5th “Z”) a convertible and drove it for 11 years, selling it for a few thousand dollars less than I paid for it.

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  • Waste and Irresponsible Spending – #28

    The Management Message is to focus your internal/external auditors and accountants on LINE-BY-LINE budget item analysis to avoid problematic situations that can arise and serve as a potential savings that translate into profitability. Our Federal Debt amounts to $21.7Trillion – In the last decade our elected Representatives have allowed the debt to grow four times the total debt produced since our founding 240 years ago. The following represents the spending of some of our Tax Dollars by the Fed. Govt.

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  • Who’s Managing the HOG Farm? – (Harley-Davidson) – #25

    The President of Harley in the 1980’s was assigned to keep the company from financial ruin and to keep one of America’s oldest and strongest brands alive. He passed recently at the age of 90, but 40 years ago the Marketing and Financial Management folks kept insisting that it was the Japanese that were causing the problems that Harley was experiencing. Vaughn Beals decided to ask the four questions covered in Blog #2 and found out that “The Problem Was Us” in the form of inefficient factories and slipshod quality.

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  • Get Paid According To Established Terms – #24

    The key Management lesson to be learned from this Blog lies in the fact that you don’t ship any more goods until the Customer pays outstanding bills. This will require a very strong Credit Manager to battle both an array of Internal Managers and External factors such as Customers who want to be trusted “or else”. The fact that you can lose a large and longtime Customer is a reality, and will require the intervention of top Management between the Customer/Sales/ and Credit.

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  • THE CHICAGO CUBS – “TWO OUT OF THREE AIN’T BAD” #23

    Joe Madden the Cub’s Manager created a culture of being laid-back and indicating that ”TWO OUT OF THREE AIN’T BAD” when playing weaker teams in the league . The reference recognizes the Meatball Series of Music, but Theo Epstein will be changing that culture, and replacing it with a degree of “urgency” that will be challenging to Joe and the Cub’s players.

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  • 13 FATAL ERRORS OF MANAGEMENT – #22

    1. Refuse To Accept Personal Responsibility
    2. Fail To Develop People
    3. Try To Control Results Instead Of Influence Thinking
    4. Join the Wrong Crowd
    5. Manage Everyone the Same Way
    6. Forget the Importance Of Profit
    7. Concentrate On Problems Rather Than Objectives
    8. Be a Buddy, Not a Boss
    9. Fail To Set Standards
    10. Fail To Train Your People
    11. Condone Incompetence
    12. Recognize Only Top Performers
    13. Try To Manipulate People

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  • Can You Trust Anyone? How About the Catholic Church? – #19

    Trust has to be earned by management. If trust does not exist in the Church, Government, at Work and amongst Friends, and most importantly Customers as it pertains to business, where can a person turn to. Amongst the biggest loss of trust in Management has happened at the Catholic Church who for nearly 100 years covered-up sexual crimes committed by Priests, Bishops, Cardinals and even the Pope.

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  • Toys ‘R’ US – Six Months To a Slow Death of a Business – #18

    Simply put, the liquidation of Toys ‘R’ Us can be blamed on Management which reflects a degree of inability to manage a business along with a lack of industry knowledge, high evidence of incompetency and clear indication of total disregard for Customers, employees, stockholders and suppliers who extended credit and needed TRU to stay in business. Management made out alright because as always they cared for themselves.

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  • You Have To Know Your Employees – #17

    Urban Meyer was my favorite football coach (78W & 3 L record at Ohio State) and I loved his intensity and focus on Managing the Ohio State football Program. So when I heard that the school’s board was launching an investigation of him and placing him on paid administrative league pending recommendations for disciplinary measures, my reaction was disciplinary action for what? Evidently Coach Meyer had allowed an assistant coach to stay on staff after it was learned that the assistant coach was being accused of domestic violence.

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  • Have You Been Re-organized? – #16

    In 256BC Petronius stated that he learned that we tend to meet any situation by re-organizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization. Traverse back 2500+ years and the Managers job was still to surround himself with Eagles (Recruit), train & develop, develop plans and implement the appropriate steps (SUN TZU’S 13 Points –Blog #16). Yes, Petronius could not have known of General Motors, IBM or Sears Roebuck. Yet, today. Many of our businesses are very much like the huge military legions or the city-states of his era. It is amazing how closely related is the importance of thinking, planning and implementing that covers a period of 2500+years. Change takes place often, so make sure you and your Managers are not only thinking a great deal, but communicating a great deal to build TRUST, not only about how your company should re-organize— but WHY.

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  • SUN TZU THE ART OF WAR – 500BC – #15

    SUN TZU in 500BC was looking for a job as a General working for a War Lord to head up the army. In an interview with a War Lord, he was challenged to show his capabilities to lead by having to line-up and march 30 of the War Lord’s concubines in a military manner. SUN TZU accepted the challenge and asked the two ladies who headed up the group to get the ladies ready to march – they were laughing and carrying on knowing that the War Lord was in their corner as he had previously done.

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  • Where is the Dirty Money Laundry Located? – #14

    In Riga, Latvia a small Baltic country and the Laundry’s name is ABLV Bank. This laundry accounted for dealings with North Korea, Iran, Russia and numerous former corrupt clients such as the Columbian cocaine baron who moved $697M to U.S., and the gas mogul who had to flee from Ukraine as the Pro-Russian government was being overthrown in 2104, and the ABVL helped move Billions of dollars through nine shell companies.

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  • HOW DOES MANAGEMENT IMPACT THE BOTTOM LINE? – #13

    Is it any wonder why all our manufacturing started to be outsourced all over the world as increases in GP% caused the demise of quality and overshadowing of all the costs associated with outsourcing especially if done on a global basis. The higher the GP% the higher the Management bonuses – they were committed to their success and not the success of the Customer.

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  • WHAT IMPACT WILL GEN Z HAVE ON YOUR BUSINESS? – #12

    One of the key responsibilities of Management is to recognize the future role of Demographics that are inevitable and can’t be affected by short term implementation of programs or strategies that will change the basic structure of a society. We just have to look at China and confirm the impact of a one child per family birth policy. On my recent trip to China, I saw a lot of older people and a definite shortage of 20-40 year olds. While the rule to have more children was recently enacted, it will take at least 20+ years to make all the adjustments necessary for a COUNTRY with 1.4 Billion people and growing.

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  • THE NEED FOR A NEW APPROACH TO RECRUITING – #11

    Recruiting is not a primary responsibility of the HR (Human Resources) department. They can be part of the process but the key responsibilities of establishing the Initial Profile , conducting all Interviews and the Final selection steps have to be the responsibility of the Manager for whom the potential candidate will work for.

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  • HOW WILL BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS? – #10

    If you are not identifying the role that block chain technology can (the present) and will play (future) with your internal and external processes aimed at serving the Customer and sustaining the continued growth of the business, you are already falling behind the rapid changes taking place in the environment surrounding your business. Don’t be a defensive manager, be a leader through leading the way to knowledge.

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  • THE ONE PAGE PLAN – #9

    Without a Plan your business efforts will be like a sailboat sailing across then Ocean without a rudder. Every thriving business is lead by a smart and powerful group of managers, who sail along the seas of success and know where they have been, where are they now and where they are going. They are leading, not drifting and being blown in every direction by the wind – that will take charge – if you allow that to happen.

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  • SWOT ANALYSIS – #7

    Before we start our Journey of Success, please complete a SWOT analysis of your past, existing and future business ventures as well as consider completing one on you to get a realistic evaluation of yourself. SWOT – stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – an extremely effective tool to provide a base for a realistic evaluation that will lead to the next step – planning – a process which is so essential to every business.

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  • Why So Late? – #6

    One has to ask the question of Folgers coffee a 167 year old company that has been successful up to the last couple of decades. Why do we state the It Starts and Ends with Management? The answer lies with a company such as Folgers Coffee where management could not have been watching the Competition, gauging Demographics, conducting Consumer surveys, acquiring or merging with like Companies, and continuously focusing on a reactive Marketing effort aimed at Folgers maintaining their market share.

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  • The Need for Long Term Gains – #5

    Very few Manager compensation plans or annual expectations are based on Long Term Gains. Instead their focus is based on short term periods such as quarters or annual achievements. If you add-in a Manager turnover rate, you can start seeing points that forego opportunities for making required changes.

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  • Commerce Sales Tax Will Level Playing Field – #4

    More than 40 States are asking the US SUPREME COURT to abandon the rule that has been in place during the recent growth of e-commerce. The reason for this mandate is very evident – a source of Revenue for each of these States that won’t affect the Resident who has witnessed significant increases in taxes across the board.

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  • One-on-One Management – #3

    Many employees have little or no TRUST in their Managers due to a herd mentality on the part of the Manager to follow the latest “How To Idea” and the complete focus on themselves and their achievements rather than the individual they are managing.

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  • Ask these Four Critical Questions – #2

    The need to have an organized approach in place when faced with a challenging situation will result in having the right answers to these FOUR QUESTIONS – you might look at these questions as too simple and not reflecting the management challenges you are facing, however, don’t judge until you have put them to the test.

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  • The Customer is the Boss – #1

    The following organization chart sets the stage for you the Manager to structure your department and hopefully your organization according to the power you transmit in walking-the-walk and talking-the-talk. Too many organizations are talking about the need to serve the Customer, but fall short in their Silo driven environments in communicating this commitment to every employee in the organization and most importantly to the Customer.

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