Yep another story about the 3500 WMT stores.   Plea read the previous post about Execution and then the Halo Effect to put this in perspective.  Business Week toured three WMT stores, hardly a scientific sample size to be fair, and concluded that the strategy was not being executed. Like MSFT and not long ago…

Execution The Art of Getting Things Done is reviewed at this hyperlink.  The authors argue that many books have been written about strategy. But that is useless unless someone executes the strategy and gets it done.  Now bear with me, I am going to link this idea to the next post.  Karl Popper or perhaps…

You are aware that I have students write about TQM and Six Sigma in the managerial class. Here is a story about how Starwood Hotels is using Six Sigman to boost the bottom line. One criticism of Six Sigma is that it is result oriented not design driven.  Design of the hotels took place first.…

Tom Friedman staked his reputation out with the bestseller The World is Flat.  Click on the link to read his latest thoughts on how the US is doing. I have posted articles on the poor results shown by American students on history and economics.  Friedman goes on to make the point that the Bejing airport…

Gee GM strikes are not what they used to be. This article perhaps sums up better than any other what I have been saying about the metamorphosis of the auto industry. In 1970 hundreds of thousands of workders struck. That one strike raised the national unemployment level.  That was hardly the case for the one…

Managerial accounting helps one understand what it takes to be successful in any business.  A case in point are the ever popular sports franchises, of all kinds.  Now what little I understand about sports is this. Fans come to see players and teams win, not to lose.  One has to attract winning talent.  It seems…

Do you have an avatar?  I am not sure I quite understand the virtual social web! Apparently folks are creating the people they really want to be in virtual reality environments. I suppose it is simply an extension of the pop culture media reality, why are so many people interested in Angelina and Brad? I…

Here is a letter from an ex Deloitte employee.   My experience is that tis is the more typical complaint of someone who worked for one of the very large accounting firms. They burn out after two or three years. As the writer says, this is why such firms hire so many recent college grads,…

What was the A & M Coach thinking in offering a near secret assessment of his players to a select few?  Click and read the article about how he charged $1200 for the inside information on which players were ready. He asked the subscribers to agree not to bet on the games.  So why did…

The latest Forbes 400 list is out.   An examination shows that this is a fluid group with less than 100 of its original members.  Many in fact are self made folks.  And they did not make their money ‘on the backs of the poor’ as many would have you believe.  I don’t find entire…