Tze Tang

Agile Timelines

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Agile

My current project had just kicked off recently, with its first Scrum sprint. It was not smooth sailing as there were confusion on the exact scope, deliveries, timelines – you name it. Overall, we are governed by a high level timeline, set by the CIO, so certain things have been locked in stone and I had suggested that we order and prioritize the activities to meet those milestones and establish our own finer grained development timeline. I had sold the idea to my PM and my peers and had patted myself on the back for a job well done.

Then it dawned on me – I had stepped into the waterfall abyss.

By sequencing tasks and ordering on a timeline, it was clear that this would signal a waterfall-like process of management, the bane of developers everywhere. At the same time, a pure Agile method may not work due to the fixed high level timelines.

Moscow Calling

At one of my previous jobs we had used the MoSCoW method for order and prioritization of tasks. MoSCoW classifies tasks by criticality (courtesy of Wikipedia):

• M – MUST have this
• S – SHOULD have this, if at all possible
• C -  COULD have this if it doesn’t impact anything else
• W – WON’T have this time, but WOULD like in the future

Summary

The high level executive timeline provides dates to draw sprints around and MoSCoW provides priorities on the deliverables. As long as the sprint delivers on the MUSTs, it will provide the business with sufficient benefits to warrant it a success. Any SHOULDs and COULDs would be bonuses.

PC Manufactures are dead if they don’t embrace Software + Services

// August 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // IT

Making PCs is a dead end business.

Ask any of the big players. Look at what they’re doing. They’ll be dead if they keep making PCs, and only PCs.

Everywhere you look, PCs are commonplace. Almost every home has one, if not two or three. Cyber cafes, banks, libraries – they’re everywhere; and in every shape. PCs come in big, medium, small sizes; in black, white, beige and any color you can image. Goldilocks would not have a problem picking a PC today.

But making PCs is a dead end business.

The modern PCs is now a commodity. You can get PCs in supermarkets, even applying for credit cards could entitle one to a free PC. Get a data plan – Free PC! But a car – Free Laptop! Get a bag of lettuce – well, you get the picture.

I remember a time when having a PC in the home meant something special. There was a place in the home, a room even, for the all powerful PC to live in. The room had to be air conditioned, so that it did not get burnt in a hot summer’s day. It was unplugged from the mains in the event of thunderstorms. There were specially made dust covers, so that its tiny nooks and crannies did get get dirtied. Owning the PC meant something special.

No longer, making PCs is a dead end business.

With makers of PCs coming up in China, the big guys are having a problem. Making money from making PCs is a tough business. Consumers are getting savvier, less loyal. Phones themselves are becoming PCs, having built in browsers and other pieces of software.

Making PCs is a dead end business…

…but its not hopeless. Where the PCs have become commonplace, it ushered in a new era. More of more people are becoming connected, with their entire lives on the internet. Lifestyles are built around the PC and being connected to the net. Beige is the new Pink, PC is the new TV.  Services are the new in thing. It’s what brings value to the PC. Think of t the web, email and instant messaging. Think  of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo. The internet would not be what it is without these services.

Services is the new dawn of computing.

The big PC manufacturers, namely HP and Dell, have already made moves to provide computing services. Microsoft is advocating a new retailing model: software + services. There was a time when a PC was ‘out of box’ if it came with a monitor and keyboard. Now, its a PC that’s is ready to hit the ground running and have it do what you want it to do. Email Server? Check! Accounting? Check! Have it all supported by some faceless techie in some remote datacenter? Check! 

The PC is dead! Long live services!

Consumer Led Market, or Market Led Consumer?

// July 28th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // MBA, Marketing

All it takes is a session of using the internet in checking my mail through GMail, reading the news on wired.com and conversing with friends through messenger, for me to be continually bombarded by advertisements, product reviews and suggestions. As a seasoned internet practitioner, I’ve honed a skill to selectively ignore the noise from signal, but once in a while, something of interest will indeed catch my eye. As I am writing this entry, I am doing so on my brand new Asus Eee Pc, a small 10” mobile computing device. If I had not been exposed to this new segment of computing devices, I have have written this on a more conventional laptop or even a desktop, but no, I am doing it on my brand new small form factor Eee PC netbook and I am loving it.

Asus Eee PC

An Example of a Consumer Led Market

The ad in question was not a traditional advertisement, but rather it came in the form of a editorial opinion. It had a catchy title of something like ‘All Day Computing’ or ‘Go Anywhere Computing’. I was like a fish to bait, hook line and sinker. It had made me realized that I had a latent need for an ultraportable laptop which would allow me to take my work when I am out of my home, as I spend a lot of time at my parents and commuting. Being a small netbook with an ultra efficient processor and other magical bits, the advertized battery life is at a whopping 9+ hours per charge, indeed leading to a whole day of computing without wires. Asus has identified that there is a need in the market for all day, mobile computing and reacted accordingly. Today, their product roadmap has dozens of products, fitting various niches.

The automobile market is also another industry that is market driven. BMW and Mercedes has various products to fit various lifestyle requirement, e.g. active, sporty, rugged, city, etc. On top of the vehicle class, there are numerous options which the customer can select to include; upon which the factory would manufacture YOUR car just for you.

An Example of  a Market Led Consumer

On the other spectrum, there are products which utilize marketing in order to shape customers to the needs of the product. I feel that most financial products are fairly ridged and use marketing in order to spin their  products for them to appear as being flexible and fitting the needs of the consumer. Fancy an overdraft facility, or revolving credit on a home mortgage? It’ll give you all the flexibility in buying a home and managing your money! Yeah right. The one thing they won’t tell you about is that every time a consumer exercises these ‘benefits’ there is an applied surcharge.

According to ‘The Consumer Rules?’ (David Knights et. all), the deregulation of the UK financial services sector had not resulted in the availability of more consumer centric products as intended. In actual fact, the financial sector embarked on a marketing campaign to educate its customers on their supposed need for their products and instruments; with the intention of shaping is customer base to fit its products; effectively the tail wagging the dog.

If the financial products were truly customer focus, we would already have mortgages with variable rate of amortization, whereby it would be more expensive during the traditional working months and cheaper during the summer and holiday periods to cater for varying pressures on income (have to buy those gifts and take those vacations you know). Who knows what the banks would be able to come up with if they really tried.

Now, one may wonder if we’re the suckers in the equation, but Knights postulates that the reason for the financial sector to not be truly consumer driven is purely economical; they would be able to make any money! Finance continues to be the few sectors that is still steeped in regulation, now even more so, has much checks and balances in play and has a high bureaucratic cost. But provided truly customized products, the over cost would be tremendous, effectively position the product’s cost outside of what’s acceptable to the consumer.

Perhaps technology and regulation has not yet matured to a level which would allow the banks to provide truly consumer centric products at a reasonable cost; and hope that I don’t end up in a hole.

Want a Big Bonus in the Middle of a Financial Crisis? You should have worked for Goldman Sachs.

// July 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Finance

Last week, investment bank Goldman Sachs posted a record quarterly profit of USD$3.44 billion, in the middle of a global financial crisis; half of which would be dispensed as employee compensation. How’d that happen, cause I want a piece of it!

That means that for Goldman’s roughly 30,000 employees, with an already astounding $11.3 billion already set aside for compensation, the average payout to each employee is a mammoth $350,000 per employee and that’s just in a single quarter!

While the rest of America and the world is still reeling from record unemployment, defaulted mortgages and general poverty, Wall Street is reaping in the dollars. It is amazing that six months ago, the banks was on their death’s bed, only for the government to act as a savior to save them from their imminent demise.

If you’re as boggled as I am, so are the guys at NPR Planet Money. Catch their latest podcast with Goldman Sachs PR Spokesperson at this podcast.

The Many Faces of a General Manager

// July 23rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // MBA, Management

The General Manager

In today’s modern firms the role of a general manager or CEO encompass many facets, roles and responsibilities. A general manager oversees the total function of the organization that he is leading, which entails responsibilities in all departments and functions within that organization.

As firms get ever larger and more complex in today’s globalized environment, a general manager may also oversee disparate, far flung business units, having to ensure that they all fit perfectly in a well functioning machine.

The ideal of a general manager may not fit what is commonly rationalized as Henry Mintzberg’s case studies where the first to capture traits that had differed from what was commonly accepted. He found that effective managers were characterized by “brevity of interactions, discontinuity of action and lack of reflection.” and tended towards “informal, disaggregated and verbal media for communicating and obtaining information.” Rather than subscribing to work in a systematic, procedural fashion, effective managers would be as oil to a running machine, filling in gaps where needed and facilitating difficult transactions within the organization. Managers would also continually nurture and build relationships within the organization and leverage on those relationship to form bridges across internal departments.

As such, research and reflection has shown that the General Manager would have to fulfill the following roles in different capacities.

Face #1: Entrepreneur

The General Manager, in the event of increasing competition or sudden shifts in regulation (e.g. Financial deregulation), the leader of the organization would have to find new value-creation opportunities and allocate capital and resource where necessary to achieve those results. This role need not be a major role for the general manager in an stable environment, as the company would have already been invested in preexisting commitments and have had built long term strategies and relationships.

Face #2: Organizer/Implementor

According to Chandler’s dictum, structure follows strategy, which implies that the GM should organize the firm to best implement their strategic choices. The organizing manager would determine the optimal information and resource flows within his organization. In this case, the manager would prioritize restructuring around the most critical areas of the firm which contributes most significantly,  as well as coordinating key activities deemed vital to the execution of the company’s strategy. In addition, the GM would delegate key decision making rights to individuals in the organization as well as to determine types of incentive schemes to implement to motivate the firm’s employees. The manager would also serve as a lubricant in resolving disputes within departments in the organization as well as to manage stakeholder (e.g. the shareholders) expectations.

Face #3: Contractor

In dealings and negotiations with external parties, the general manager frequently serves as its representative. In cases where the firm is engaged in building relationships with vendors, suppliers and customers, the general manager is expected to negotiate favorable terms for the firms as well as to manage its contracts. In cases where certain activities may be deemed vital to the survival and profitability of the firm, the general manager would be expected to decide on ‘make or buy.’

Face #4: Powerholder

In situations where a firm’s internal managers may be at a conflict, the general manager would yield the power and authority of the position to resolve conflicts. However, in exercising the power, it could lead to detrimental results if it hinders other managers from performing their duties, or if the manager acts in a manner that is contrary to the firms goals.

Face #5: Facilitator

In any sizable organization, there is bound to be conflict between managers of internal departments; to which a general manager should be able to resolve via influence and power. Frequently the firm’s success would be dependent on efforts by crucial employees, however these employees may not be empowered, motivated or willing to perform. In such cases, the general manager must be able to create processes and develop a corporate culture to which it will influence and shape perceptions of the employees to behave in a manner which would increases chances of success of cooperation. The role of facilitator is most key to successful general managers, however it is also the most difficult as its success its dependent on intangibles and and ’softer’ activities, such as relationship building and leadership.

Face #6: Competitor

The nature of a profitable firm in a free market is to be competitive. If there is profit to be obtained in a particular market segment, it would be a surety that there would be multiple firms in that space. The general manager would then be responsible for observing the competitions behavior and strategy and react according to obtain the competitive edge. Relationships between competitive  firm can exist, either directly or indirectly, where firms could work together to form standards for interoperability and forming of trade associations; however it could also lead to tacit collusion which could be deemed anti-trust behavior.

Face #7: Adapter

As firms and markets evolve, the ways and means of being profitable would change. The general manager is tasked with the responsibilities of evolving and adapting the firm to remain competitive in ever changing market landscapes. Where it once would have been advantages to vertically integrate, as with the steel mills of the mid 20th century, it may be more advantages for a firm today to not vertically integrate to remain competitive, as with the mini-mills of today. In steering firms to remain competitive, a general manager would need to restructure and reallocate resources within the firm and would have to facilitate continued cooperation between a firms departments.

Face #8: Agent

Ultimately, a general manager or a CEO would have to report to a third party (the exception being an owner-CEO). The general manager would have to act on behalf of his organization in the firm’s organizational structure, with managers reporting to a general manager; which in turn reports to a group general manager, which then may report to a CEO or his group. Even the CEO would be a representative of the firm to a board of directors and the firm’s shareholders. The difficulty in being an agent of the firm is to strike a positive balance between firm’s needs and one’s personal needs. There have been cases of abuse, however these are rare.

Closing

The many roles of a general manager reflects the difficulty in leading any organization. Not only would a successful manager posses the skills required, but a manager would also have to manage the tensions between the various roles. In certain situations, a manager would have to manage the tension between long term strategic growth, through capital expenditure, and delivering on short term profits, expected by the shareholders. In addition, the role of management has been continually evolving from the inception of the firm, to the development of the multidivisional model to today’s decentralized management. In closing, the role of a manager is a difficult one and is growing in complexity with the increasingly globalized, competitive markets.

iPhone 3GS: Do you need it?

// July 21st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Marketing

Over lunch, my friend and I was discussing on a marketer’s task of creating and providing products that fits consumer needs. As consumers we would like to believe that firms would go through significant effort in order to devise goods and services that would enrich our lives, but in reality, do they?

For example, my friend is currently rabidly anticipating getting his hands on the new iPhone 3GS, already having own an immediate previous iPhone 3G. Being puzzle on his enthusiasm for a product refresh, I had asked him the reasons for his want of the new model:

“Its faster and it has a better camera!”

Hardly reasons for spending close to three thousand ringgit (~USD 800) for a ‘faster’ phone with a ‘better’ camera, right? What benefits does that bring the him, other that having menus pop up faster (doubt that its noticeable), taking less grainy picture (woohoo!) and perhaps running  a further handful of apps meant for only the 3GS (big woop). Upon further prodding, it became clear that the ‘need’ for the new phone was to have the ‘latest and the greatest Apple product’.

I’d have to hand it to Apple on the strength of their marketing machine. If Nobel prizes were given out to companies in the field of brainwashing, they’d be a repeat offender. Not only has Apple managed to position the iPhone as the end all and be all of smart phone, to which they have done a fabulous job, but rather a larger accomplishment would have been to market the Apple brand itself as the Rolex of consumer electronics. The who’s who of gadgets.

Just as celebrities would want their pictures taken alighting from the latest Lamborghini, or Prius as they would have it, but caught using the latest iPhone and surfing on the latest MacBook sipping coffee at the latest java joint.

The human need for trendsetting and trend following is exploited to the hilt by Apple and their brethren and what they provide is not only product that fits a particular physical need, but also psychological and emotional need to ‘fit in’ and be considered ‘cool’.

To that, I can understand the ability for Apple to charge a premium on their gadgets as it comes with a side of joy…

Though I still think the ‘S’ in iPhone 3GS stands for sucker.

Your definitions of Marketing

// July 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // MBA, Marketing

I had asked around some of my friends, work colleagues and acquaintances for their definitions of marketing as received a number of interesting responses:

Marketing involves communication based activities and tasks to identify wants and needs of the market, to help in the product positioning, and pricing to achieve maximum sales objectives and target.

K.Z., Technical Architect

The above interpretation involves market segmentation, product positioning and the fulfilling of for the customer’s needs, profitably.

Marketing is the process of simplifying sales.

S. G., Patent Manager, Business Consultant

The above alludes to marketing as a management process.

Marketing is targeting a product towards a specific set of consumers through planning, production, packaging, and promotion.

C. D., Software Consultant

Again, marketing is a management process with activities in product, market segmentation, product positioning, advertising and sales. A point to highlight is the use of the concept  of a promotion. Promotions are typically used to attract customer attention via pricing tools such as price cuts, bundling with other or same products to increase the value of a per unit of product or embarking on additional advertising with the aim of generating additional sales revenue and/or product turnover.

Marketing is identifying the right message (of a product/service), to the right people (market), through the right media (channel).

W.L., Software Development Manager

Interesting to note of the mention of the concept of ‘channel’. In modern retailing, a retailer has multiple means of reaching the same customer through several modes. A retailer could have a brick and mortar operation, to be complemented via product catalogues as well as an online store. Managing the modern retailer-customer relationship requires significant additional effort with attention paid to customer behavioral patterns as well as preferences of communications.

Marketing is to me, strategic selling.

J.K., Document Change Control Manager

Again, allusion to the concepts of market segmentation and product positioning.

Marketing is the process by which a commodity, idea, asset, item, etc. is communicated and exchanged for objects of, or more abstractly offerings possessing value.

R.L., Computational Physicist

Marketing need not only involve the selling of a product, but could be anything deemed to have value by the consumer; this could include good, services, corporate branding, etc., for the exchange of items of value; whereby it could be cash, time or good will. An example of a non-cash marketing transaction would be a politician canvassing for votes. The politician could perform a market survey, position the product, himself, according to the perceived market needs and ‘sell’ himself to high value target voters, thus market segmentation, for the end goal of receiving as many votes as possible.

[Marketing is] print, in person, visual, audible, or other introduction or exposure of a product or service to a consumer or group of consumers — usually in a positive manner.

A.S., Green Civil Engineering Manager

The above alludes to marketing profitably. Profit in this case needs not be money, but anything deemed valuable to both parties. The reference to ‘in a positive manner’ would entail that a transaction would not occur if both parties do not stand to gain any perceived benefit from the transaction. After all, a consumer would not spend money for a good that he/she does not desire and a retailer does not usually  sell products at a loss.

Finding out the target customers’ expectation ( need/likes/dislikes/value )on a specific service/product.Creating a product to meet the customers’ expectation. Creating a marketing campaign to change the customers’ expectation to what gives your product an advantage.

Measuring the effectiveness of the previous two.

K.K., Engineering Director

Marketing, as with other managerial functions, must be measurable in order to deem its effectiveness. After all, you cannot manage what you can’t measure.

Marketing is about exposing yourself or a product.

Y.Y., User Interface Consultant, Web Visionary

A key part of marketing is advertising.

Marketing is persuasion to do something or buy your product.

H.S., Entrepreneur

At first thought, this could refer to the advertising aspect of marketing. However, skilled marketers could accurately segment a particular market and create a ‘need’ in that segment where there was none before, effectively persuading the consumer to purchase your product for a need that did not previously exists.

Update: Props to Yassir for Marketing Definitions from the Top Marketers on Twitter

Key Concepts of Marketing

// July 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // MBA, Marketing

The term ‘Marketing’ elicits a wide variation of responses, but according to formal association of marketing professionals and experts, it is as follows:

Kotler, 2003:

Marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and freely exchanging products and services of values with others.

Dibb, et all, 2006

Marketing consist of individual and organizational activities that facilitate and expedite satisfying exchanges relationships in a dynamic environment through creation, distribution, promotion and pricing of goods, services and ideas.

Chartered Institute of Marketing

Marketing is the management process which identifies, anticipates and satisfies customers requirement efficiently and profitably.

American Marketing Association

Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.

From the above four definitions of marketing, I believe that what they have in common are the following:

Marketing involves individuals and groups

Marketing involves the exchange of goods and services between individual consumers and groups. An example of an individual consumer could be a person purchasing groceries from a hypermarket (e.g. Tesco), whereby the retailer would be a group. Groups could also purchase goods, in the form of institutional buyers such as the government or a university.

Marketing is an exchange of goods and services, which carry value

Marketing involves the advertising and sale of goods and services which carry a perceived value, after all, what would be the attraction of a good or service with no value? Marketing could also increase the perceived value of a good or service by elevating the value of its brand or by association with experts (e.g. reviewers, athletes, doctors) to lend credibility to the specific good or service.

Marketing creates profits

In the act of exchanging the goods or service, profit is also to be made. The act of marketing it to maximize profits from such transactions.

Marketing identifies wants and needs and fulfils them

Marketing it not only on way by way of advertising, but also to identify the needs of the consumers by utilizing focus groups and eliciting feedback from end consumers on the pro and cons of existing goods and services.

Marketing is a process

Marketing is a process by which all of the above must be dutifully orchestrated to maximize results and profits.

Defining Marketing: My Definition

// July 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // MBA, Marketing

As part of commencing with an MBA program, one of my first modules is in Marketing.

The term ‘Marketing’ is oft used in explaining the roles and tasks of Marketing Men. My definition would be as follows:

The act of ‘Marketing’ defines the creation or the identification of the needs of the consumers and fulfilling them. Marketing entails understanding the consumer as well as to identify latent needs and to make them become overt needs.

As part of my first assignment, I will be soliciting other people for their own definitions of Marketing.

Stay tuned!