Winning ( Chapter 20 ) Here, There, and Everywhere - Outlook of luxury goods market in China

In the final chapter of Winning, Jack Welch lists out several questions which he misses in the previous chapters. I pick out one of the questions about China which it becomes the greatest competitors among the world.

Q: We spent the last ten years bringing our company up to speed with training and process improvements, and with our low-cost labor, we were extremely competitive. But now we’re getting killed by China. How can we stay alive?

Jack Welch reports that a lot of workers from villages in other countries are coming gain a job in the factories in urban areas. They are all threaten by the massive of cheap labor and well educated engineers in China. In fact, Beijing organized the Olympic Games 2008 and Shanghai held the 2010 World Expo, everyone would like search for business opportunities in China in these 2 major cites.

Three old warhorses of competition are introduced by Jack Welch. They are cost, quality and service. He recommended the managers to find ways to reduce the production cost around 30-40% and implement the six sigma methodology in the production line. Take a look of the CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, he visits China twice in a year for studying the 500 Starbucks branches in China. He finds out there is an enormous speed of growth of sales revenue in China than other countries. The cost of the frappuccino in Hong Kong and China is nearly the same. However, there is a significantly difference in the cost of labor and rental of the store in China than in Hong Kong. China can provide cheap labor which can reduce the cost in the production line.   

Recently, China is poised to become the world’s largest market for luxury goods by 2020. Several reports from Hong Kong Trade Directory Council indicate that the growing of household income in every Chinese family would like to spend money on luxury items. Chinese consumers would like to travel to US and UK in Chinese New Year Holiday. They would like to purchase luxury branded name goods such as Louis Louis Vuitton and Hermès. Plenty of retails in New York and London would like to hire the staff with Mandarin language over the period of Chinese New Year. Upgrade the quality and service could be a competitive advantage among the others.

Instead of investing in China or upgrading the staff quality in luxury goods outlets, Jack Welch introduces the companies to join venture with the Chinese company. On 27^th December 2010, Walmart is poised to take a stake in China’s fast growing online retailer 360buy.com. The world’s biggest retailer is teaming up with online ecommerce business in Beijing. The ecommerce is growing fast in China. The local citizens would like to purchase online. It is around 420 million internet users in China and the researcher predicts China’s online shopping market will exceed 1,000bn yuan in 2013. Nevertheless, you can look at China and fee victimized. Or you can look at it and be excited about conquering the challenges and opportunities it presents.

2010 Shanghai World Expo Official Theme Song

Starbucks to Expand in China


China Luxury Boom Moves Inland


《北京欢迎你》 完整清晰版 - Beijing Welcome You!

Winning ( Chapter 19 ) Work – Life Balance - Sheryl Sandberg, COO of facebook

 

In this chapter, Jack Welch indicates that your career and your family life are both important values in your life time. A stable income which can help you to build up your personal family, you can support your family members with stable income such as houses, household expenses, tax and insurance etc. On the other hand, you need to spend time with you family members and friends. It is a chance for you to relax and share your love towards your family. Then you can sufficient energy to due with your career on working days.

In the reality, your boss’s decision will be the competitiveness of the company. Usually, they won’t care about your personal life and they would believe that work – life balance is your personal problem to solve. In fact, everyone manage work - life balance with their own type. It is the way to manage the time and sorting through priorities between work and home. Jack Welch shares 3 best practices in this chapter.

1)      Keep your head in whatever game you are not.

2)      Have the mettle to say no to requests and demands outside your chosen work life balance plan.

3)      Make sure your work life balance plan doesn’t leave you out.

Before, I explain the 3 practices in detail. Let me introduce the Chief Operating Officer of facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. She is married to David Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, and has two children. She is named to the board of Walt Disney Company and she also joins the board of Directors of Starbucks. She placed 16th on Forbes' list of the 50 most powerful women in business in recent rankings. And she has a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. A well educated woman and a working mom who drinks coffee.

In Dec 2010, she has a speech which is talking about “Why we have too few women leaders?”. Most of her friends at her same age would tend to stay at home with their children. Traditionally, men tend to earn much month than women. Besides, women need to do the house work 3 times more than men. As a result, women would like to stay at home with their children rather than chasing their career. She suggests 3 practices.

      Sit at the table: She explains that women systematically underestimate their abilites. You should own your own success which is the first practise from Jack Welch. If you are at work, keep your head in the work. If you are at home or play, keep your mind only there.

      Make your partner a real partner: She explains that you should separate the household work load and taking care of children with equal amount between men and women. Traditonaly, parents would like to put more effort on boys rather than girls. She points out that office work and household work load are the same important duty for all parents. Parents should share the work load with the same gender. Jack Welch indicates that if you find some work load which can pass to your lower level in order to join your family activitates. Please do so and say no to your senior level with that office work. He reminds that family and office are both important in your life.

      Don’t leave before you leave: She explains that if a woman would like to raise a child. Please stay in your field and keep moving forward. You can raise a child with your career at the same time. Once you are pregant, please don’t leave your job at once, make your decisions with your child and your career. Jack Welchs indicates that there are so many people are proceeding their work – life balance plan for their family members or officers in the office. They don’t gain any happyiness in the whole plan. If you cannot gain any fun in the plan, you won’t sustain it. You should make sure your work – life balance plan fulfills your dreams and passions. You should consider yourself, family members and officers in your plan.

      Sheryl Sandberg belives that if everyone can full fill her practices, leaders can be equal amount of gender which can build a better world. Jack Welch wishes all the empolyees can make an arrangement for each other to work out work – life balance. You can gain better experience and obersevation in your life. Two great persons’ point of view about work – life balance are very similar to each other. You should start to think about it.

Facebook COO: Working Moms Need Help from Working Dads

Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders



Winning (Chapter 18) Hard Spots - Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom

 

Every industry, office room or working area, you should find a bad boss. You can find out plenty of rumors and complaint in the forum group about the bad boss in his / her working area. Obviously, a bad boss can kill part of our soul, positive energy, commitment and hope. If you feel sorry for yourself in this way, please quit this kind of thoughts. Jack Welch builds up a chart to indicate the leaders according to their results.

Type 1: Good values / Good performance	Type 2: Bad values / Bad performance
Type 3: Good values / Bad performance	Type 4: Bad values / Good performance

Most company CEO or senior mangers would like to hire type 1 leaders. The type 2 & type 4 leaders would be faded out very soon. The senior level should spend time to coach type 3 leaders to improve the performance.

According to the book of “The End of The Party” by Andrew Rawnsley, several staffs in Downing Street No 10 have physically attacked by the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  

• Hit a senior aide who got in the way as he rushed to a reception at No10.
• Physically pulled a secretary out of her chair as he dictated a memo to her.
• Hurled foul-mouthed abuse at two aides in his hotel room in America in a state of semi-undress after reports that he had been snubbed by President Obama.

Althrough he denied those claims, one female officer reports to the news reporter that he is not easy to work for. Other rumors about this Prime Minister are similar the same. No one likes to work with a boss which has bad temper and physical violence. Many people would likes the prestige of working in the high performing division, but they hated his day to day nastiness. As a result, bad reputation is generated very quickly between the election period.

                          

“The Devil wears Prada” is a 2006 comedy drama film. Anne Hathaway stars as Andy Sachs, a fresh graduated student who goes to New York City. She gets a job as a co-assistant to a powerful and demanding fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. Miranda treats everyone below him with the same kind of bad behavior, intimidation, belligerence, arrogance, neglect, secrecy or sarcasm. Andy knows this position is over a thousand girls’ dream job. She would like to meet all the commitments from the icy editor in order to stretch her abilities in fashion business. She keeps asking for why do I work here anyway? Leaving school and stepping into the real world could be difficult when facing a bad boss. However, it could be a trade off of salary, experience or the friends in your working place. In this story, Andy overcomes all the hurdles. She gets the network, experience and friends in fashion industry. She upgrades her dressing skills, communication skill and problem solving skills. Imagine you are the role of Andy Sachs, if you face the bad boss in your working area. Please consider the trade off values, if it is no worth, please leaves gracefully.

Gordon Brown in Rawnsley's 'The End of the Party'

The Devil Wears Prada. Trailer

Winning ( Chapter 16 ) The Right Job - Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple

Coming to this chapter, everyone who lefts college will enter the real society. Some person can work for one job or industry for his whole life. Others will change several job natures according to his / her career path. Usually, successfully persons really understand their own gift or talent; they can choose their right job in the early twenties. Jack Welch lists out several criteria in choosing the correct job. May be you can take notes for these points.

1)      A word about pay: If you need to survive, the amount of wages reaches the top of the list.

2)      People: If you find everyone in your team can reach consensus and you can learn from each other. This can be an ideal job for you.

3)      Opportunity: A firm can be a new college for you where you can learn, stretching, growing and keep moving forward.

4)      Options: A good job can be acting as a stepping stone which you can jump to another firm with better offer in a few years later. A good job can be working in a large firm with good reputation or working in a growing firm with plenty of experience which you can gain. This experience can fulfill your resume and waiting for head hunters.

5)      Ownership: You should work in a firm for reaching your own dream rather than working in a firm for reaching someone’s dream.

6)      Work content: Every job has bad days and good days. You can find something about it which is love and feeling. If you can’t find any pieces of feeling and love motion. This is not your right job or industry.

     Steve Jobs, the chief executive officer of Apple. He also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios. He carried a speech in Stanford University in 2005. The speech was about his life and career. It was divided into 3 parts.

     The first story was he started in college at 17 years old. He had no idea about his career life with his degree. He dropped out the college life and decided to take a calligraphy class. The lessons were about serif and san serif typefaces. 10 years later, he added this value into the first Macintosh computer. He encouraged the students to learn the subject with great interest which can connect in your future.

     

  The second story is about love and loss. In his 30s, Apple fired him and replaced his position with a young talent. In the first year, he was devastating. He still loved his work and he started the computer animated studios which were Next and Pixar. The most successful animation film Toy Story was created remarkable events and Apple bough Next and he returned to Apple. The period of jobless was the hardest time in his life. However, it was the medicine which he needed. He won’t give up. He convinced himself he loved his job, life and the people around him. He met his wife in his animated studio. He recommended everyone to find the job which you love and stay there.

      My third story is about death. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. The report was he only had 6 months to live. He prepared his affairs in order and decided to stay with his family till the end. One day, the doctor collected the cells from the tumor and evaluated that this type of cancer could be curable.

      Everyone will die in one day and don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

     He recommended the students stay hungry, stay foolish. Keep learning and keep dreaming.

      In the end of this chapter, Jack Welch reports the similar concepts from Steve Jobs. He recommends the readers to find their first real job. The job which you love the people in there and the idea and concept of the job nature; you should be true and realistic to present to everyone in the working area. It is difficult to act someone to work in there. If you decide to leave, please find a job first rather than leaving your position instantly. Since, it is easier to get a job rather than you are jobless. If you are jobless, you need to show the self esteem in any job interview. Don’t let present yourself with a swagger. You need to project realism and optimism. As a result, the boss wants to hire the prospective employees.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

HD - Rocky Balboa (2006) - inspirational speech

Rocky Balboa Kinetic Typography


Pursuit of Happyness Scene

Pursuit of Happyness - You got a dream?

Winning ( Chapter 15 ) Six Sigma - Andrew Mason, the founder of Groupon

Six sigma is quality improvement program for large enterprise. The program includes the operational efficiency, raising its productivity, lowering its cost and improves product design process. Moreover, the program can speed up the delivery time to the end users and builds better leaders. In this chapter, Jack Welch doesn’t explain the six sigma in detail, he primary focuses on two applications.

The first application is designing the process into simple and repetitive activities from a complex situation. It is the internal process of elimination the unpleasant surprises and broken promises. The top levels employees should discover the root causes of inconsistencies. Spend time on studying and make the process from complex into simple production line. Then pass the skills to the lower level employees. Thus the whole process will be manageable.

The second application is making the decision to determinate the right actions in the process. The senior level employees should monitoring the external process every moment and study the update statistical analysis. They also involve sophisticated level of training. Since the market trends, customer’s behavior and the economic factors are changing every moment. They need to update the information everyday in order to meet the requirement from the clients.

Andrew Mason, one of the 40 under 40 CEO who defines a new concept of purchase. He is the founder of Groupon which is group purchasing method on web 2.0. Groupon is a deal of the day web site that is localized to magjor geographic markets in US, CA, Brazil, France and UK. The first city is Chicago in Nov 2008. According to the record of October 2010, it serves more than 150 markets in North America and 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America and has amassed 35 million registered users.

This new concept of purchasing online is to generate a certain amount of buyers to purchase the same service or items at the same period of time in the same location. Buyers can purchase the service or items in a discount value. The sellers can use this selling method as a new kind of promotion in online platform. This can elminate the waste of time for every single buyer and sellers and speed up the delivery in the whole process. The senior mangers in Groupon is applying the second application. They study the bussiness with outstanding reviews. They find out the major buyers are young, educated, female customers. As a result, Groupon focuses on the health, fitness and beauty markets in other countries. Moreover, they use social marketing sites such as Facebook to promote the idea.

Jack Welchs defines six sigma in a simple way. He suggests do not use six sigma to implement to your industry or business. He recommends the CEO should understand the two applications and design a new working process in your industry. 60% of time and effort is used on reviews and designing the new working process. The rest of the 40% will focus on elemination the variation. He also indicates that setting the correct concept is the key factor in the designing process. The right concept is to gain the huge part of your customers sticky is meeting or exceeding their expection. Groupon is the best example of creating win win situation in online business.

Learn How Groupon Works!

Groupon on Fox Business

Winning (Chapter 14) Mergers and Acquisitions - Google, Youtube and Android

Merging is a very common way for large enterprise to gain world of synergies, industry convergence benefits or revenue synergies, cost savings and increase shareholder value. A successful mergers create a dynamic where 1+1=3. Jack Welch indicates 7 pitfalls for all the CEO to avoid these happenings.

1)      Who become the CEO / leader after the merged enterprise?

2)      Fail to assess cultural fit.

3)      Reverse hostage situation.

4)      Too timidly, a merger should be completed within 90 days.

5)      Conqueror syndrome, installs its own managers everywhere.

6)      Paying too much.

7)      Resistance from the acquired company’s people from top to bottom.

Several mergers cases are very successfully such as, eBay and Paypal, Google with Youtube and Android. Today, I pick up Android for the review of this chapter. Android is a mobile operation system. This company was purchased by Google in 2005. Google collaborated with Android and released the system to the world. Now, Android OS smartphone ranked first in US market.

To avoid the failure of cultural fit, Google let the Android development team Open Handset Alliance to cope with the hardware, software and telecom companies. The Open Handset Alliance is the founding team of Android, this team collaborate with other telecom companies to develop the open standards for mobile devices. Since Google is a search engine enterprise, it is difficult to develop mobile platform from its own. This action can avoid the failure of cultural fit. On the other hand, Google releases Nexus One, this mobile is used to complete with apple iPhone. This phone can be described as Android powered Google phone.

Another new feature of Android is Android market. This Android market is available from 28 August 2008. It is the official download location for applications and games for Android powered devices. The users can purchase applications which support 29 countries. In Nov 2010, around 160,000 applications are launched from Android. In the future mobile market, Android OS will develop applications with popular internet sites and services such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Jack Welch points out that mergers mean change. It is part of the growing process for large enterprise. Google avoids the 7 pitfalls, it can develop a new mobile phone Nexus One with Android. Android can develop its own OS with several mobile companies and new applications with popular web sites. It is a good example of 1+1=3.

Android 2.3 Official Video

Google Nexus One - Video Preview

Winning (Chapter 11) Strategy - facebook email from Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg

So many enterprises would like to develop the latest strategy for their portfolio, investment etc. In this chapter, I will discuss how to implement the strategy in process. Three main initial steps are the key principles which are:

1)      Come up with a big aha for your business, a smart, realistic, relatively fast way to gain sustainable competitive advantages.

2)      Put the right people in the right jobs to drive the big aha forward.

3)      Relentlessly seek out the best practices to achieve your big aha, whether inside or out, adapt them, and continually improve them.

According to the first chapter of Art of War, it is the chapter of laying plans which is similar to this chapter. Today, I pick up the Facebook  email account and I will introduce 2 persons in this chapter, the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and the COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg. Mark Zuckerberg is an American entrepreneur who co-founded the social network Facebook. Sheryl Sandberg is the COO of Facebook, she used to be vice president of global online sales and operations at Google. She used to be in Google for 6 years until 2008.

On 15/11/10, Facebook introduces a modern messaging system. The new service incorporates chat, SMS and email functions to allow people to share however they want to share according to Facebook. The new firm is named as Titan and its message tool is broadcasted as Gmail killer. Mark claims that it is a convergent modern messaging system. The users can handle messages seamlessly across all the ways to communicate within a single inbox. This messaging service blends online chat, text messages and other real-time conversation tools with traditional email ( Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail ). Facebook is applying its social networking strategy to prioritize messages from friends and family. The Facebook users won’t need to check all their email accounts. They can simply check 1 Facebook account and broadcast the message within an inbox click. This action can be incorporate more instant message on email messages and instant test messages on mobile platform. Thus it is more personalized and customized message service against the traditional email platform. With such a large user base, 500 millions Facebook users, the free personal facebook.com email account is a threaten signal towards Microsoft, Yahoo and Google.

The internet war depends on the user’s spending time. Google currently owns this honor but Facebook has proven that its addictive service can hold people’s attention for long period of them. Currently, Gmail is Google’s greatest social asset and it is the main hub of communication and social activity in Google universe. Mark finds out the competitive advantage against Google which is the Facebook fans page. People would like to share the instant message among their friends whom they know. Sheryl Sandberg introduces that email is a very slow message tool. Fans pages can be a powerful tool to find the friends whom they know and whom they don’t know in terms of internet adverting and marketing. Obviously, it is extremely valuable.

Jack Welch simplifies the strategy is to find out the right aha and set the direction, put the right people in place and work crazy to execute better than every one else, finding best practices and improving them everyday. To be honest, Mark Zuckerberg finds out instant conversation and social network will obsolete the traditional email service and marketing advertising. All instant conversation can apply in mobile platform. As web 3.0 is approaching, Mark seeks this demand in the future. He hires a very great person Sheryl Sandberg as the COO of Facebook to operate this strategy. Mark is concentrating on the program for web 3.0 everyday. He is a very good model for this chapter.

The social network

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at Nielsen Consumer 360

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO