Management Blog

Time capsules for all

As part of a series of articles on the future of communications, Forbes Magazine is providing a personal time capsule facility on its website.

Visitors to the site can write themselves an email which will be sent back to them in the future; in one, three, five, 10 or 20 years.

Assuming Forbes and its technology are still around in 20 years... and you're still using the same email address... and that the Internet and email will still be in use....

Customer support group aims to avoid problems before they arise

Fixing customer problems is the focus of a recent Fast Company interview with Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, the US-based online DVD rental service company.

When there's a problem, you've already had the experience, he says, so 95% of the Netflix support group’s work is to avoid the problem in the first place.

"The miraculous thing about the support group is that it's smaller now than in 2000 when we had only 100,000 customers instead of today's 3.2 million," Hastings says.

"It's not because people are on hold for longer - they still have great response times. It's because they’ve learned how to avoid so many problems."

Rather than outsourcing their customer support offshore, Netflix have spent their energy fixing core problems.

Survey says: More than half of Aussie workers not happy

The third annual SEEK Survey of Employee Satisfaction and Motivation in Australia released earlier in the week has found that more than 50% of Australian workers are unhappy. This figure shows an almost 10% increase on 2004 figures.

The top five reasons Australian workers leave their jobs:

1. Lack of career development
2. Quality of Management
3. Salary
4. Workplace environment
5. Stress levels

"With unemployment being so low, Australian companies are sitting on a potential powder-keg, unless management begins to address staff issues, to keep morale high and employees satisfied with their roles," said Matthew Rockman, Executive Director of SEEK.

State and territory comparisons revealed NSW employees were the least happy, followed by Victoria and Tasmania. ACT and the Northern Territory were shown to be home to the happiest workers.

France seeks to regain Australian lead in UK wine sales

The French have increased by 40% the amount of money they spend on promotional activity for their wine in Britain.

France is still the largest wine supplier to the UK, which imported 2.6 million hectolitres in 2004, but it has been overtaken by Australia in sales through off-licences and supermarkets and is only marginally ahead of the United States.

French foreign trade minister Christine Lagarde said in an interview with The Times that France was determined to regain the off-trade lead that it relinquished two years ago "as soon as possible".

Over-users face water cuts in SEQ

Dry times in southeast Queensland may mean households that use too much water could have their supply cut off and industrial firms could be forced to cut consumption even further.

A "technical working group" of staff from local SEQ councils, SEQWater and the State Government's Department of Natural Resources is reviewing the current level-four restrictions.

Southeast Queensland has implemented level-two water restrictions. Level-three restrictions, which include bans on hosing cars, lawns and gardens, will apply from December 1, when dam levels are forecast to have dropped to 30%. Level-four restrictions may be introduced by February 2006.

Virtual online annual meetings are more inclusive

A third of the companies surveyed by the US Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals are enabling their annual meetings to be run on the Internet, thus allowing a wider audience to "attend" proceedings.

By including interactive question and answer sessions, some companies have made the traditional annual meeting redundant. The benefits are broader because many companies are international and there is no way all the shareholders can attend. That's one of the reasons meetings tend to be short and why directors dislike attending.

Virtual online meetings are more accessible and demonstrate that directors and management are open and transparent.

Enterpising Australia - 'Me Inc'

Business Review Weekly has dubbed the growing trend of nearly 2 million self-employed people 'Me Inc', and predicts that within 20 years half the workforce could be their own boss.

Innovation and entreprenial spirit abound, but often the choice to set up their own business is driven by lifestyle reasons and the desire to lower their workload.

The article, which accompanies The BRW Fast 100 list, suggests some of the self-employed are reluctant to shoulder the burden of hiring people so the industrial relations changes will be welcome. It also calls for a better understanding of small business owners' particular requirements, improved business networking and growth tax incentives in order to facilitate growth.

Countdown to National Novel Writing Month

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to the event aficionados, challenges people to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in 30 days, starting 1 November.

From 21 participants in 1999, the annual event saw 42,000 participants all over the world attempt the feat in 2004 (almost 6,000 actually reached the 50K goal).

With output the goal of NaNoWriMo, the event organisers recognise quality or writing may be sacrificed. However they advise to "forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create".

Sign up is free, so if you think you have a novel in you, this great concept might be just the excuse you need to get writing. (And with a name like NaNoWriMo, what's not love? The 'novel' event name is almost as good as BiMonSciFiCon.)

AustralianUnity Wellbeing Index survey shows decline

The personal well-being of Australians has fallen sharply since its significant rise at the time of the Sydney Olympics, according to a survey by the Australian Centre on Quality of Life at Deakin University.

The 1.7 point decrease is the biggest change yet recorded between adjacent surveys. There were significant falls in interpersonal connectedness in both relationships and the community and in satisfaction with the standard of living and with future security.

Small business to the fore

Small businesses continue to dominate the Australian commercial landscape.

Latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show there were just over 3 million businesses in this country as at June 2004, 72% of which were non-employing. Of the employing businesses, 90% had fewer than 20 employees.

Property and Business Services (24%) and Construction (15%) were the predominant sectors. New South Wales was the head office for more than one third (35%) of all Australian businesses.