I have long admired UPS for its continuous improvements in customer value. With a mission to “synchronize the world of commerce by developing business solutions that create value and competitive advantages for our customers,” the world’s largest package deliver company has emerged as a leader in supply chain management services and less-than-full truckload shipping. These additions enable even the smallest of companies to compete with the big boys without distribution issues precluding ever being considered. Indeed, UPS is one of the reasons barriers to entry have fallen in many industries. UPS argues that logistics (the planning and control of the flow of goods) is intricately linked to sustainability, as the goal of logistics is to use the least resources to transport items from one place to another. In a one-page advertising spread in last week’s Wall Street Journal UPS touts its efforts…
Businesses start to die when business model innovation stops
Young women and teens are ruthless customers, shifting from one on-trend store to another as quickly as they shift love interests. The retail clothing industry is therefore a great place to learn this vital leadership lesson: In today’s information-age economy, business model innovators emerge as winners, while those delaying business model innovation steadily lose market share. Business Week’s Benetton: A Must-Have Becomes a Has-Been tells a sad story of a retail chain I first encountered and fell in love with in the late 1980s. Founded in 1985, this Italian clothing maker brought consumers the look and feel of European clothing at an affordable price, accompanied by its bold United Colors of Benetton advertising that paralleled the bold colors of its clothing lines. By 1993 the company was 7,000 stores strong, with locations in high-end shopping malls in major US and European cities.While Benetton…
A stronger government business model
Were it not for my status as a United Airlines Premiere Flyer that allowed me to bypass a seemingly endless security line, I would have missed my 6:18 AM flight from San Diego to Atlanta. Airport security lines with one hour and longer waits are apparently very typical at peak travel times in San Diego as they are in many other large airports. These lines are government waste. Any manufacturing leader, indeed anyone trained in thinking about processes, could improve the efficiency of the US airline security system. A thoughtful reinvention could easily maintain safety while lowering federal employee cost as well as the traveler’s indirect costs – lost productivity from feeling sleepy all day from having to get in line at 4:45 AM for a 6:18 AM flight, not to mention the waiting time itself. Step one en route to a better…
Leading Business Model Innovation
Craig Schiefelbein, CEO/owner of Wisconsin-headquartered Paragon Development Systems, Inc. (PDS) exemplifies strategic leadership. Is it any wonder then that his Information Technology Solutions (IT) company has grown in twenty-two of the last twenty-four years and strategically partners with healthcare IT departments across the Midwest? Schiefelbein’s strategic leadership rests first and foremost in his willingness to change his company’s business model. “We’ve changed our business model seven times. Every time I’d think we had it all figured out only to discover we’d be out of business if we didn’t change. The challenge is in running the business while also rerouting it, and doing it before the changes become mandatory.” PDS started humbly in 1986 as the computer component wholesaler, Memory and More. Today PDS architects, supplies, implements and manages entire IT hardware infrastructures. Its business model involves aligning PDS’s unique blend of leadership, services,…