XM and Sirius to merge - Why are we not surprised?

So XM and Sirius satellite radio have announced that they are finally going to merge. We called that one years ago! What the two have been doing is engaging in a competitive war of attrition that is guaranteed to end with one killing the other off, or in a desperate bid to avoid the ultimate game of competitive chicken, a merger such as the one proposed.

What is fascinating is how companies get themselves into these situations over and over again. Almost the exact same scenario played out years ago with British Satellite Broadcasting and Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV satellite network. The two went head-to-head with incompatible systems, losing millions of pounds each month, until a merger deal was finally forged, combining the two into B Sky B.

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• Posted Admin on February 22, 2007

Book recommendation - The Halo Effect

Our good friend Phil Rosenzweig has just published a terrific book, called The Halo Effect. It's main thesis is that we come to a lot of erroneous conclusions because knowing the outcomes biases our reasoning. It's a fascinating read.

For more on Phil and the book, check out his website -

http://www.the-halo-effect.com

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• Posted Admin on February 19, 2007

What Americans spend on pets

I ran across the following mind-blowing numbers - and came to the conclusion that there are vast sums of money out there if one is creative enough to capitalize on what people are willing to buy!

$38 Billion - Amount Americans spent on pet food and care in 2006, nearly double that spent 10 years ago

$2,000 - cost of a doggie nose job in Los Angeles

$395 - cost of a Burberry dog bed

$50 - price of an oatmeal body wrap for big dogs at LA Dogworks, a doggie spa

47% of dog owners say they buy holiday or birthday gifts for their pets.

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• Posted Admin on February 19, 2007

ILO Institute

Visitors to our site might have an interest in the work of the ILO Institute. Here's the news about them:

The ILO Institute brings together senior executives from Fortune 500's, for dialogue with Nobel Prize winners and other distinguished thinkers (Christensen, Lessig, Dyson, others), and to provide research on best practices to make innovation a reality. Gathering are very small, the research is top-shelf, and the cost is relatively low.

For more information, email peter@ilo-institute.org.

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• Posted Admin on November 07, 2006

Comment on Virtual Operations

From our good friend in Korea, Hyokon Zhang (we've temporarily disabled comments due to too much junk and spam - but if you email me comments I'll happily post them - Rita)

I absolutely agree. If you want to improve the service level of store operation, six-sigma could help. But if you want to remove the store altogether and go virtual, you need a totally different perspective. Six-sigma assumes continuity, but what you are doing is destroying and recreating.

We just reopened our company website including a blog. I find blog as a great tool for expressing ourselves and communicating with people. And it shows that you are there. I think we are one of the earliest adopter of blogging among consulting firms (actually we aspire to be something else than a traditional consulting firm). It has a news entry about our seminar in 2005, but it is in Korean.


Hyokon Zhiang
Founding Partner
Innomove Group (http://www.innomove.com)

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• Posted Admin on September 05, 2006

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