Succession planning: women in the pipeline?

Succession planning: women in the pipeline?

labyrinth

Succession planning is considered necessary for every organisation from the family farm through to Fortune 500 companies.

Teresa Russell talks to two organisations that operate at different ends of the spectrum. Both are doing what is within their powers (and budget) to identify, develop and retain future leaders – with a special emphasis on women.

What else can you be doing?
What else can your business be doing?

 

Make The Most Of Every Marketing Dollar

Make The Most Of Every Marketing Dollar

MarketingThatWorks

In Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company (Wharton School Publishing), the focus is on optimizing investments in every aspect of marketing, whether it’s targeting the right customer, delivering added value or generating better product ideas.

Authors Leonard M. Lodish, Howard L. Morgan and Shellye Archambeau offer tools, tactics and strategies that companies can use to differentiate themselves in today’s marketplace. As the authors note, “Marketing, more than technology, is most often the reason for the success or failure of new ventures or new initiatives” in mature corporations.

Knowledge@Wharton has excerpted a section of the book at this link.
The checklist is well worth the read. Enjoy!

Harry Potter and The Prisoners of Business

Harry Potter and The Prisoners of Business

JK Rowling

by Leon Gettler

The release of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, nicely timed with the release of the fifth Harry Potter movie, has been an extraordinary business phenomenon.

Extraordinary because the publishers and booksellers have not done that well. As research out of Emory University in Atlanta suggests, it has exposed weaknesses in the publishing industry but it might also illustrate new trends that are reshaping business. The effect is magic.

Marketing professors and sociologists say it highlights how innovations now spread through word of mouth, instant messaging and web sites. The book sales have also been driven by huge booksellers like Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Waterstones.

Just as importantly, it has a launched a new young adult novel niche written for and about the Millenials, the people born since 1982.

Also, we are starting to see some of the viral marketing techniques used to spread the buzz about Harry Potter being adopted by other businesses. Even politicians. Think of the way John Howard and Kevin Rudd are using the Internet to win voters’ hearts and minds.

Harry Potter could be more than just a huge brand. It might be a taste of the future.

Read on…

What lessons can we draw from the Harry Potter phenomenon?
Did the viral marketing work for you?
What can businesses do to replicate the success?

Fear of sacking ‘keeps women quiet’…

Fear of sacking ‘keeps women quiet’…

ThinkingLady

The Age — Page: A3 : 13 August 2007
Original article by Jewel Topsfield

LexisNexis Summary
Twelve academics contributed to the “Women and WorkChoices: Impacts on the Low Pay Sector” report. Across low-paid jobs such as cleaning, hospitality and transport 121 women were interviewed. A key finding is that low-paid women are too afraid to comment on illegal or unfair work conditions; also fearing to request changes to working hours in case they are dismissed under the WorkChoices laws. The Australian Government has described the report as “deeply flawed and politically motivated”, ahead of its official release on 13 August 2007. The report also found that the loss of unfair dismissal protection in small businesses affects “the labour market in which minimum-wage workers are concentrated”.

Work Choices hits women hard: study
The Sydney Morning Herald — Page: 3 : 13 August 2007
Original article by Andrew West

LexisNexis Summary
Australia’s Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) commissioned a WorkChoices report in March 2006. However, after the sex discrimination commissioner, Pru Goward, departed the agency to contest a seat for the Liberal Party, HREOC withdrew from the study. The research continued with funding from state governments and bodies such as the National Foundation for Australian Women and the Women’s Electoral Lobby. A key finding following the WorkChoices legislation was “an increased climate of fear” found in many areas which traditionally have a concentration of female employees, particularly aged care, call centres, child care and hospitality. Most of the 120 case studies involve women earning less than $A20 per hour, with almost 85 per cent in workplaces with less than 100 employees.

Self-employed lead bankruptcies

Self-employed lead bankruptcies

ebook-startwiththeendinmind

More than half the small businesses that start up are bankrupt after three years, figures show – and the self-employed are the biggest victims.

In June 2006, there were more businesses than three years previously – 1963, 907. The creation of businesses in the intervening period still exceeded the number of those that failed.

The ABS study shows that survival rate is also linked to age and number of employees. The longer a business survives, the greater its chances of continuing survival.

Hence why it is imperative to work on your business, as well as in it (to quote Michael Gerber) so as to ensure you know which way you are steering, and why! A great place to start, and revisit annually. Click here to find out more.

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