Management Blog

Computing the key to the future of science

The concepts, tools and theorems of computing science have become integrated into the broader fabric of science, a recent report concludes.

This follows eight months study by 34 of the world's leading biologists, physicists, chemists, Earth scientists and computer scientists, led by Stephen Emmott of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, into how future developments in computing science might influence science as a whole.

The report,"Towards 2020 Science", says computer science produces an orderly, formal framework and exploratory apparatus for other sciences.

NZ dollar dives as economy goes into reverse

The Kiwi dollar has hit a 22-month low as the New Zealand economy contracts for the first time in more than five years, reports the AFR.

In the fourth quarter, the economy shrank 0.1% from the third quarter, Statistics New Zealand reported, compared with analysts' expectations of 0.2% growth.

New Zealand's economy has almost stalled while those of its biggest trading partners, Australia and the United States, continue to grow.

"We will be faced with a year and a half of virtually no growth in this economy," said Westpac Bank chief economist Brendan O'Donovan.

New stacking robot for food industry fastest in world

A newly developed robot for the food processing industry can increase productivity by up to 20% compared to current packaging and processing techniques for small objects, says its developer, Spanish company Fatronik.

The Quickplacer robot is designed for objects up to two kilograms in varied packaging and placing tasks in the confectionary, bakery, fish, meat and vegetable markets. The company says it can pick up and position over 200 items per minute.

"The Quickplacer robot is the most rapid in the world. Its high acceleration and braking capacity, five times more than that of a Formula 1 racing car, makes it world leader in production capacity," Fatronik stated.

Defining employee engagement

It's imperative for leaders to identify the levels of engagement in their organisations and to implement behavioural strategies that facilitate full engagement, say Ivey Business School academics Gerard H. Seijts and Dan Crim in their article "What Engages Employees the Most, or The Ten C's of Employee Engagement".

Quoting a Gallop Management Journal Employee Engagement Index which revelaed that, in the USA, only 29% of employees were actively engaged in their jobs, the authors seek to clarify how to manage those people who have mentally "checked out" but still turn up for work each day.

They describe clearly how leaders can identify the levels of engagement, with the ten C's of "connect, career, clarity, congratulate, convey, contribute, control, collaborate, credibility, confidence".

Bright outlook for business tourism

The outlook for business tourism in Australia is excellent, says Jon Hutchinson, the managing director of Sydney's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"The game is very tough, of course, but wherever I go I find that Australia still stands out as the aspirational place. And that stands behind all our bidding."

The economic contribution of this sector of the tourism industry grew from $7 billion in 1999 to an estimated $18 billion in 2005.

In 2003, the National Business Events Study (NBES) found that the average daily expenditure of business visitors that year was $554, almost six times the $94 daily average spent by all international tourists to Australia.

Analysts say reputation as important as financials

A company's reputation is as important to analysts as its financial results, new research shows.

Communications firm Hill & Knowlton interviewed 282 financial analysts from around the globe on what they consider to be the most important factors when rating a company. They found that, while financial results are significant, non-financial factors are increasingly more important.

87% of analysts rated financial performance as extremely or very important, while 86% said quality of the leadership team was also valuable. 85% said "making good on promises" was vital.

But the majority, including 94% of Asia-Pacific, reported that the profitability of companies will be impacted if they do not look after their reputation.

Coming to grips with innovation

Understanding what constitutes innovation is important to formulating policies to encourage it to happen, writes Steve Burrell in the SMH.

A new Business Council of Australia study points out that misconceptions and narrow thinking about innovation have led to confusion over policies.

The study suggests that creating an Innovation Nation is more about getting right the basics of education, infrastructure, tax, workplace relations, competition policy and business regulation. Innovation goes far beyond advanced technology and invention - all knowledge within a business may have the potential to add value and better serve the consumer.

Burrell calls for government to "come to grips" with what innovation really is in order to see results.

"Most importantly, encouraging innovation across the economy hinges crucially on education and training. This will require both more resources and more thought put into developing a system that will not just maximise technical skills but the capacity of Australian workers and managers to be creative, flexible in their thinking, entrepreneurial and able to learn throughout their lifetimes," he writes.

"Encouraging innovation, one of the key engines of productivity growth in the economy, is vital."

Understanding the power of small signals

There’s a new buzzword in the workplace... Microinequities is a term used to describe the sort of seemingly minor offences that can upset people, such as you boss checking email while talking to you, or having your name mispronounced by colleagues who should know better.

Large corporates such as IBM and Wells Fargo are holding training seminars to demonstrate how verbal and non-verbal unpleasantries can affect everyone, which can impact on staff retention.

Stephen Young, a former chief diversity officer at JPMorgan Chase, is behind this focus on the power of small signals.

"It's not so much what I say, but what you hear," he says.

Gen X and Y desirous of collaboration

Paul Greenberg writes in CIO about the proliferation of Generation X and Y in business today. In the United States he claims there are approximately 132 million Gen X & Y in business, and only 79 million baby boomers.

As the Gen Xers (the oldest now being 43 years old) continue to take up leadership positions from their baby boomer predecessors, Greenberg states they are "demanding new business models to give them the kinds of customer experiences they seek". Companies that don't listen to what their consumers want will lose out, as Gen Xers (and Yers) take their business elsewhere.

Greenberg says this is because Gen Xers "think differently and want significantly different things out of life than previous generations". Generational consultant Claire Raines believes this is due to the Gen Xers' self reliance, the 'latchkey generation' who mostly grew up with both parents working.

"They desire to control their own destinies and their own experiences," paraphrases Greenberg. "Products and services are now being sold as lifestyle solutions by companies that understand the deeply rooted desire of these new consumers to control what kind of lives they have.

"As customers, Gen Xers and Gen Yers are more volatile and high-maintenance than any other generation in history. They are voracious in their desire for immediate information and have sophisticated behavioural approaches to filtering that information.”

Internet could be growing at 25,000 pages per hour

Thirteen years after the web became available to the masses, nobody knows just how big it actually is.

When it stopped publishing the number of pages it was indexing, the search engine giant Google was claiming it had 8 billion pages trawled. But according to some experts in the field, the web may be 400 times bigger than that... and growing by possibly 25,000 pages an hour.

3000 billion pages in 13 years? John Naughton from The Observer believes we need a way of thinking about what this revolutionary transformation of our environment.