Intangible Corporate Assets such as Organizational Capital, Blue Sky and Brand Name Capital, actually they all have a common thread in my opinion. Here are some thoughts on these issues. And first I would like to comment on a couple of UCLA, Anderson School of Business items which are of interest. And I must say these research pieces are somewhat cutting edge, in business management theory.
This is particularly interesting to me as one of my family tree offshoots was Friedrich Winslow Taylor, whose mom, Emily Winslow was an offshoot of the Winslow's in the Philly area, which are my direct ancestors after they had moved from the Mass and Maine areas. Thus Freidrich Winslow Taylor had similar beliefs in organization which also I had nurtured into my upbringing and therefore find such items fascinating and apropos to running a nationwide service business like the Car Wash Guys http://www.carwashguys.com, which is my company.
Here are some thoughts of value to add to the comments and findings in these research projects of the UCLA Anderson School of Business. First item to be discussed is an article by Bhaqwan Chowdhry a Professor PhD (not to be automatically granted superior expert status as Einstein said-Pile higher and deeper comes to mind) although in this case the work is relevant and very good, so the PhD in this case has been noted as such social norms dictate. I thoroughly enjoyed Bhaqwan's research on Organizational Capital (OC). This is quite good.
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/bhagw...dhry/orgcap.pdf
I think when teaching this concept to future executives, governmental leaders, non-profit leadership personal, coaches and military top brass that a few points of value might be added in summary, for instance: First and most basic is: "Bet on the Jockey not always the horse" might be looked at a little closer. Winners usually win and therefore bet on a winner. In a team atmosphere the best team can beat a team made up of superior single players with better skills. Bet on the team or jockey and not necessarily the horse or industry. Another comment might be "Chainsaw AL destroys OC", cutting organizational capital that it took time to build destroys rather than builds and we should be looking at companies such as Microsoft and Bill Gate's theory of organizational and intellectual capital in this realm. When other companies cut back he continued supporting and advancing his team on new projects. Another point is that of competition during periods of OC flux of the opponent, whether it be generals of a hostile country, downsizing of military due to economic situations of your potential adversary and with that theories of Von Clauswitz on first strike and reciprocal response to serve your political will. Look at China and other countries forcing their hands at times of our military down sizing?
So this comment is worthy of note to add to the cliffs notes of such a research report on OC; "The best time to try new products or marketing techniques is when your rival competitors are going through transitions such as lay offs, large department cost cutting, mergers or changing of the guard due to retirements. Their OC is at an all time low as it is readjusting and cannot adapt to chase you into the newly opened market sector". OC is also exponential in many cases depending on it's usage. Try this concept to be added to the debate on OC. "The longer a groups works together, the greater the chances of increased OC provided primate politics and innate human characteristics to not impede the flow of information and rapid transfer of communication". All these items and the OC of any company is critical when discussing flow of information for good decision making in a non-linear fashion. Here are some thoughts on flow, which will increase your ability to convey these concepts and this message to future leaders. I have always determined that the OC as is called in this report, which is appropriately named was far more important than the Physical Capital. For instance our company runs our entire business and operates in many states from this unit.
http://www.carwashguys.com/blitz.html
And with that said our physical capital besides the service vehicles is nearly unworthy of mention from a Balance Sheet perspective. But the rapid ability to adjust to new markets and take them is our strength as the game becomes faster and theories such as the Fast eat the Slow abound, I to am a firm believer and perfect case study for this most recent evolution in management theory and OC enlightenment. This research paper is correct in that regard for the building of teams. And I submit of further value for the new leadership, which will be taking over CA from Gray Davis. CA is a large state and needs a team akin to that of the White House team with top notched brilliant visionaries and people with incredible strength of character and passion. I would also submit that part of our problem in this country is it takes a while to get adjusted as a team to work smoothly, this president was lucky in that he was able to bring on many experts who had worked before under his fathers administration and had become ego-less in their many years of taking hard knocks of politics and media attacks in stride.
But as we are witnessing currently the country is dividing and the current population is divided about 55% - 45%. And the nine opposing candidates are blasting the team and the team is forced to defend itself instead of focusing maximum efforts on the future and strategic positioning of this great nation for the rapidly increasing rate at which we must deploy our efforts to stay at the top of the game. We can tell by the poles of the people and approval ratings that the country is divided on the means, but still believes in the ends. Keeping a team together means the time needs to allowed for the leadership to work together for the betterment of the American people, the more chaos is involved and the every four years attempts to change the guard is at issue, just as it would be in any company. As we watch the divisiveness of the Maryland Senator Sarbaines attack the Forbes gal appointed for the economic team in the white house you have to wonder what would happen if every company executive of GE, first had to have all the applicants reviewed and voted on by the competing companies before they could serve as a officer, middle manager, board member or janitor? See the problem, the opposition is trying to destroy appointments to the team and therefore threaten them and influence their future decisions on capital hill.
How can they then be able to do their best and use those skills to help us, the people, in the case of a Sports team the fans, in the case of the Military the people you are liberating, in the case of a company the customer, which is the reason that they are allowed to make money. How many levels of disruption should be allowed to build a strong team. In the government they are attacked as appointees, Supreme Ct, Secretaries, department heads and advisors to the leadership. Then they are attacked by frivolous lawsuits, then by the media, then again by the wannabe incoming politicians throwing stones who live the terrariums of glass, who are not even a half a step away of Hurricane Isabel? All this hurts a team. And since we are all on the same team, in that we are all Americans, why do we allow the flow of information, the recruiting of the best of the best and the guidance of the most qualified and passionate of those who serve to be attacked?
This does not pave the way for future communication on the team, which is suppose to serve free men. The people, damn it, you and I. At one point Sarbaines laid into the Mrs. Forbes for going to a benefit, $5,000 hot dog gig where the President would be along with all the leadership. She would soon be appointed to help on the economic committee, which we need the best and brightest. By attending such an event she could get a good feel of who she will be working with a noble cause indeed, what is wrong with that? Nothing and this liberal school we call UCLA even has a study on why this is the best. So we have an opposition party attacking a future team member who will be serving us, while they attack the Corporate world and cause 7 trillion to exit the market and slow the flow of returns of capital into markets which would allow me to grow our company and provide jobs? Meanwhile calling all businessmen evil, complain there are no jobs? What is going on here, there is an incredible lack of communication, ego games, politics as usual and you and I have to listen to these idiots grandstand while we are wondering how on Earth we are going to make our payments while we are laid off and why our insurance was cancelled and credit cancelled due to traffic tickets because the strapped state budgets are increasing fines and the number of tickets quota to be written per period to help out the budgets?
Excuse me but no one is communicating. The Liberals or the Conservatives, meanwhile we attack the team members destroy teams of doers for photo-ops and pay backs in politics. Obviously mother nature is pissed too after you saw what happened with Isabel in the Washington area. What is the difference between a company run by leaders and leaders who run a country, from an MBA standpoint, like a company? Or a team, or a military or a Bee Hive for that matter?
It is interesting to watch such research papers in modern management theory try to mathematically quantify it on paper. This is because of the publish or perish rules and modern academia standards of quantification of all theories even though the mathematics used to describe such theory will not work on a case by case basis, since there are too many factors and simple or even complex equations cannot adequately describe many simultaneous relationships of simplicity drawn out into complexity by the order of ever increasing magnitudes of Government Intervention, regulations, types of individuals, market regions, East-West, Mid East, etc civilization differences in hierarchy and culture. In that regard these simple observations cannot be rendered absolute and therefore much of the mathematics involved in these things are best guess at best, which is certainly not better than natural observations of the uninhibited and open mind in an out of the box viewpoint of the interactive dynamics of egos, pecking order, Machiavellian competitiveness and/or relationship building personalities.
You do not have to be on a team very long to under stand you need to stroke the egos of those who hog the ball. I believe that their is an exponential grouping not mentioned in that companies which divide and continue such a nurturing of new managers which operate in that realm, produce offshoots of other market sectors with the mentors of the previous whole for the individual divisions. Such as GE, 3M, Battelle, Fed EX, etc. I see this happening with our team (the company I run).
I believe that such an observation also servers well in coaching, military leadership, Presidential Administration and R and D non-profit efforts. As you probably have also looked at the benefits of such OC management theory for things like NASA, UN, NATO, etc. I grant Continued success to those PhD research people at the UCLA Anderson School of business and surely applaud those who walk the walk and are able to practice such theories in the real world and not only on the Meade Paper water mark, this research is definitely onto something big and it is correct and a good paper.
Each month I receive the Books of the month audio book summaries on tape of the best business books, each month one or more are about Organizational Psychology, Leadership, Management and you know what all the books are looking the same. I can tell you the old professor who comes every night and eats on the waterfront in George Town drunk off his ass may as well be running things if we cannot get our act together and get on the same page, because this infighting Beltway buzz BS is hurting America. It is not solving the problems we face, the team must be strong, every one who is elected or appointed to such capacities must be on the team. In it to win it. Darn it. Any comments of my observations are welcome in my efforts to beat the best efforts of the past period leaders in all sectors. Too many people are not studying the whole game out there.
Now then I would Also like to comment on another research project which is quite good. So with regards to Bart Bronnonberg's research on multi-branding of retail consumer goods. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Bart's on the Multi-brand issues and having purchased Salsa at Wal-Mart last night and last week at an Albertson's, these thoughts went through my mind. And as I build my business across the country, I see things and think of such issues often. I enjoyed Bart's Bronnonberg's paper:
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/bart..../sustain_v1.pdf
Having traveled to every city in the US over 10,000 population, I find it interesting that this paper comes to my similar conclusions, about these same topics and even goes further into quantifying mathematically the truths that we observe and the reasons behind the decisions. I therefore applaud Bart's efforts as this is important information to any Entrepreneur. Also I have to wonder what Bart's thoughts about the article in CFO Magazine about these manufactures amortizing the shelf space costs over 40 years as brand capital? If the product fails they keep the cost against the Brand Capital for the forty years even if the particular product is a dud, or that sub-brand did not take hold in the minds of consumers and the product was therefore cancelled. Estimated in one study I have read 60% of new products are duds and even the ones, which survive a small test market often when rolled out are mistakes. By separating out the shelf space costs to get at eye level of the consumer, and calling the product successful when it sells, maybe a way such a company can bring out more products faster and still retain operational profits to keep up stock valuations thus giving them the edge to go into new markets or cause greater market share in Duopolies where the other competitor does not use such creative accounting. Whereas there maybe good enough reason initially for such off P and L accounting techniques, once it starts when would it ever stop?
So then, I would like to know other people's and Bart's thoughts on this as well. And what are your thoughts with newer Web Based operations, which are run by large retailers for home delivery, the basic WebVan concept, but done by the grocery chains themselves? I was recently in Jacksonville, FL and Piggly Wigglies and Publix are both considering if they should ditch these efforts or continue while it takes hold. Safeway and Albertson's as well as Bashams in AZ are also going after these niches. If these retailers continued the symbiotic relationships with Manufactures of let's say salsa, then the web listing space placement would be of significant value thus offsetting costs to consumers for delivery and thus the consumer wins from this symbiotic relationship. However, the accounting for such is at issue also as well as your thoughts and numbers and equations are called into question since the bidding for space would be more instantaneous and product testing faster. Has anyone considered these things yet?
"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs