Case Study 1~3

I have done four cases until today. I will update some thoughts about three of them. The case study process is really interesting since the case could bring us a real life situation, providing a platform to discuss and to dig deeper into the possible solutions.

1st - Cross Selling Or Cross Purposes
The first one is a case about the organization structure. How to balance the sales and consultants within the organization? How to come up a rewarding system to encourage both sides to co-op but to have a conflict? It is a typical problem that the big organizations face all the time. This case let me recall my life in Chinatrust since CTCB was looking for an answer for this kind of problem. It is easy for us to stick to how to re-org the structure to encourage the mutual understanding between two parties but the humanity does not work that way, right? We all know this but tend to neglect this point when coming up a solution. After a long debate, Albert gave us a solution that amazed me a lot – to set a book value for each sales and a fixed ration of the book value for the other party. This method will contribute to a positive relationship between two sides and result in a useful evaluation system; you can call it a control system if you like. That is the value of MANAGEMENT! Without a good management system, even the best talents can’t really know how to deliver good performance in the organization.

2nd - All the Wrong Moves
The second case was about the decision making process of certain company and the leadership style of top manager. This CEO tends to be the “nice” guy who always looks for opinions and, usually, the decisions from other people. He tries to be nice to everyone so he can’t really gives his employees clear direction and makes the good decision based on the sufficient information. The decision process is loosing and no one really knows where the problem comes from. Of course, who dare to say the CEO is the problem. What is interesting is that this company hires a consultant to de-structure the decision process and to point out the problem. This consultant gives a presentation about the rough information he gets from several interviews with the middle management people. The direction to the answer is quite clear but the way to point out the problem might be very challenging, since no one is so stupid as to blame on the person who pays him the money.

3rd - The Cane Mutiny
The third one was about the HR problem. This week Albert assigned another reading material for me and Alex. The book calls MBA in a day. Honestly speaking, this book is quite skin deep for the person who studied “Business Administration” for years but I found this book very helpful. Although the content of the book is really general, the structure helps me a lot when tackling the case. Take this case for example. I read the HR chapter of MBA in a day this week so when I read the case about HR this week; I can break the case into the structure quickly and precisely. Combining with my working experience, I finally can come up with a suggestion that looks ok. The learning is easy for understanding but not easy for execution in the real world. HR needs to take the following steps,
1. Work with management team to pin down the short-term and long term goal
2. To find out the current employees’ capability
3. Find out the gap between the current employees’ capability and the capability that company’s future goal needs.
What is the most difficult part? I would say stage one might be the most difficult part for Taiwan companies since so many of them change the plan so often without solid planning structure and logic. “Losers are those who make decision slowly and change their decision often”. So CEO or the management team needs to do their duty to come up a distinct plan for their company then the departments know how to come up the plan aligning with the company goal. The case is talking about a company’s market is aging and its employees are aging as well. HR manager is afraid of the shrinking market might affect the bottom line of the company and also worries about the recruiting effectiveness and efficiency. So he proposes to invest more on the welfare to make the company a better place to stay, lack of reasoning between the problem and the solution. This German company should realize the developed country population is always getting smaller, no one can change that. So what it can do is to leverage on its core competency, the hi-tech and the know-how, to grab the market out of its local market. This strategy might totally change its HR plan. It might need to hire the sales from different market, which depends on its market expanding plan, and only leave the people with the core competency at the HQ. Becoming a global player in its market, the company should be looking for the employees with better mobility and flexibility and with more international experience to deal with the international working process. Moreover, how to retain the knowledge of the current aging employees and to pass this core value to the younger new comers is also a task for the HR department. Knowledge management is such an important system that this company needs. It is really rewarding going through this case.

More cases are coming and I will share with all of you later. Don’t hesitate to leave your opinions if you want to discuss anything in the article. Of course, you can leave message to say Hi, which is also very nice.

Theory

I took my first class in core and corner on Tuesday night.

Frankly speaking, I just take it as an opportunity to practice my English and to get myself more ready in the English speaking environment. But I got to say the course was quite amazing. My teacher, Albert, who was an IT consultant really made the class different. He not only helped us, around 7 participants, practice their English but also provided us lots of biz knowledge and cutting-edge thoughts. I would like to share some great conversation in the class with you guys. Hope that it also gives you some new ideas to find out the news things from the material in your hand already.

The subject we had supposed to be about “some fastest growing tech companies on Biz 2.0 list”. (Biz 2.0 is a very cool magazine and everyone should take a look if one wants to know what the world will evolve to be in next generation.) Reading the articles in advance, I tried to come up three points to summarize these successful stories. First, these companies have their own core competency. Second, they all grab opportunities resulting from society changes. Third, they all aim to expand their business through enlarging biz scope but keep concentrated on the current competency, which I considered not easy for companies looking for growth, you know.

In the class, Albert kicked off the discussion by asking everyone, “Why don't you run your own business?” Some of us responded to him the same answer I got – we have no core competency. However, Albert turned down our guessing. He said he would put it in this way – we don’t have a unique theory for business. Yes, theory! What he means is that there are theories behind every business and its brand, the theories that make the companies and their products attract the certain customers in a certain way. For example, what is Apple's theory? The answer is - People are willing to pay more for the products sexier. This theory makes Apple the way it is today and attracts stupid consumers to pay more for its iBook, iPod series, and the coming iPhone. Moreover, I am one of those stupid consumers and now I know why I got hooked to this brand. Want to know something more. 85 degree Café – The price you pay for a cup of coffee in Starbucks can get you a cup of joe with a piece of cake in our stores. So people went into 85 degree café always leave the store with more than a cup of coffee. This brand is not selling the coffee actually but the great satisfied feeling more than coffee itself. Hagen Daz – Coz your tongue is stupid, you might go to Hagen Daz if you are looking for some premium ice cream. Notice that the premium we talk about here is not the quality of the ice cream but the brand image of the brand. HD is a biz coming from New York but it has a European name, why? Coz it makes this brand more premium. That's all.

We got lots of talks about the theory but skipped the most of articles. I don't know whether there would be anyone blame on that we didn't go through all the articles but, for me, I felt totally ok. Once you step into the core thinking, you can use the idea across as many things as possible. Always look for the cause, not for the effect.

Last not the least, I started to ask myself, “What is my theory?”

Escape

5/31 was my last day in Coca-cola Taiwan. It was quite stretching taking three months to prepare GMAT, TOEFL, and MBA application, and even to finish my interview with the admission. What was the most terrible was that I went back to work immediately after finishing the application process. After 8 months working at Coke, an intense job that I have never imaged it would be, I could finally take a rest before leaving for Barcelona to kick off my MBA life. Here I would like to re-cap some learning and the life experience in Coke as a personal record.

First, the experience in agency is totally different from that as a client. As a brand person, I have bigger job scope and always has to swim through chunk of market information and research data to figure out the opportunity to enlarge the market share in the most cost efficient way, to get profit in the short-term and to establish the brand momentum in the long run. Also, to save the cost and to ensure the quality of the campaign, brand person not only has to coordinate different parties and agencies, but also has to educate these partners at the same time. Working at Ogilvy, I can only took the brief from client side and go back to client with the communication solutions to satisfy their needs. Not surprising, agency's core competencyy is to provide the high "quality" ideas, also execute the ideas efficiently, but to decide where the brand is moving to and why they have to do so. Agency daily job does nothing with the quantitative analysis actually.

There are pros and cons in both positions and I am very luck to have this vertically integrated experience. Marketing job not only requests for logical thinking and analytical spirits, but also demands the balance between emotional and rational factors to develop a "big idea" campaign to motivate target consumers, clients and even the sales force. The successful brand people must be very flexible since they are always thrown up and down all the time. :p The situation might be like this - after the meeting with agency to decide which TVC script is the best one to excite our consumers and to strengthen the brand, brand person may head to another meeting talks about all kinds of number about YTD sales, market evolutions, or consumer panel result. Up and down. Right and left. Calm or crazy. It depends.

So I decide to do something special in the very first escaping day. I went to Hsin-fon, a country side that near Hsin-tzu, to have lunch with my buddy at a very pretty and natural cafe - Hsi-mu Cafe. Jumping on the train with the back pack loaded with books and my laptop, I feel really excited when the train going through the forest, big plain, and the tiny rail way station. Everything is so different from the grey area in Taipei city. The green touch, the bright reflection of sun shine, the grassy smell, the tender wind........ That's what I am looking for - escaping from the messy Taipei. When arriving Hsi-mu Cafe, I am stunned by the beautiful scene. A white construction stands in front of me with its simple and elegant shape, surrounded by well-decorated garden and the waving rice paddy. It is really a enjoyment eating a nice homemade curry rice and Panini with this fantastic environment and with the best friend, of course. I put some fotos on the blog to share with you. If you are interested in this great place, just search 喜木 Cafe on Internet. Of course, you need to spare some time and to slow down your pace first.

It is your mood and attitude decides what you feel.

Front Door View

Want to spend whole afternoon here?!?!

What a scene!