Blogmatic

I had a Coffee with Kareem Sultan from RaceDV yesterday morning. Kareem mentioned that when building a product your choices of characteristics are typically limited to 2 of the following 3; Cost, Quality and Time. You can have two but there is some sort of exclusive OR arrangement between the three. This is probably old school to many of my Engineering readers, however, it was new to me and thought it would make for an interesting post.

Quality is usually a given. If you sacrifice quality you sacrifice repeat and future businesses. Therefore it really boils down to a choice between Cost and Time. If you pay more you can get it done quicker and save time. Alternatively you could do that cost reduction and slow down time to revenue but require less cash in the short term and save Cost.

The choice between Cost and Time is a difficult one and significantly influenced by where you are in the product life cycle. If you product is mature, you have large market share and an existing product then focusing on Cost could be a good choice. If you are a young and growing company trying to establish market share, revenue and cash flow then Time to market  is likely most important.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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How can you have a blog with a category about Bell and Rogers and not have a post about the BCE sale?

The short answer is, well you can’t.

Therefore today’s post is the blogmatic point of view on the sale of BCE. Well to start with if I had the money to buy BCE I would buy Rogers or Telus instead.  As a BCE shareholder I am pleased with the results of the potential of the sale. Pleased from the perspective that Bell shares have appreciated, perhaps now is the time to sell. A rise in price by the prospect of a sale is transient. I would prefer a rise in price as a result of performance but that is unlikely to happen, at least in my opinion.

I read an interesting theory that perhaps one of Telus’s motives in putting forward an offer was to get a look under the hood at Bell’s operations. Interesting theory and perhaps some merit to it. Interesting that after a cursory look they decide not to put forward a proposal.

Bottom line is that regardless of who the new owners are at BCE it will still be the same company at the operational level. Buying at a price inflated by speculation is not a smart move, in my opinion. If your a teacher in Ontario and reading this note send a note quick to your pension administrator and tell them to move on.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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One of the sayings I have always liked the most is from President Truman “The buck stops here.” What I like about this statement is that the person in charge steps up and takes responsibility and accountability for their decision.

In large bureaucratic organizations the more appropriate saying is probably “pass the buck”. I am currently having some issues with a very large bureaucratic organization (Hospital). This organization made some decisions that will have a significant impact on my life and my families as well. Anyway I fully intend to hold them to task.

After the board made, what in my opinion a very bad decision, they implied well that is the decision. When I asked for the names of the decision makers so that I could write a letter of protest  to the person in charge the whole dynamic started to change.

The challenge with a large bureaucratic organization is in having the people actually make a decision and then accept accountability and responsibility for their actions. When the board felt that their decision would go unchallenged they were quite happy to stand by it. By indicating that “I hold you personally accountable and responsible for the outcomes of this decision” suddenly everything changes. Telling someone in a large bureaucratic organization that they will be held accountable for their decision makes them look at it in a whole new light.

I intend to make the buck stick to the person making the decision.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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I am not even sure which decade, however, when the movie the jerk came out with Steve Martin there is one scene where he is running down thre street yelling “the new phone book is here, the new phone book is here.” The source of Mr. Martins excitement was that he had his name in the phone book for the first time.

Well the phone book was distributed some time ago, however, at Carleton University the new course guide is here, the new course guide is here! Check out page 52, there is a brilliant new course on “A Methodological  Approach to Product Introduction” taught by none other than moi. I am very excited to be teaching at Carleton U and looking forward to the experience.

The new course guide is here, the new course guide is here.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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TheCodeFactory survey is online and live until this Saturday at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=NDZgQRZCJaFrwSmtAIrmNQ_3d_3d

If you are thinking about finding your own space within the next year we would like to hear from you.

TheCodeFactory is an early stage business accelerator intended to help entrepreneurs and start-ups improve productivity, better manage costs and minimize the risks associated with setting up your first office. We provide team space and service to entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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Have you heard the one about the guy who locked his keys in the car? It took him 10 minutes to get his family out.

Well I had that sort of experience today. My wife and I took our dogs to Bruce Pit at lunch for a walk and after I let the dogs out I used my remote door control to lock the door. Little known to me my wife was still in the car. My car is a relatively new Mazda 3 and she is not that familiar with the controls. Anyway after a minute or two of walking with my dogs I noticed my wife wasn’t around. I looked back and saw her sitting in the car. I unlocked the door so she could join me on our walk.

So what is the point of this story?

Well my wife’s experience being locked in the car is a whole lot like my experience with Vista and Office 2007. I have had the new computer for over a week and am starting to get used to and even enjoy many of the features. However, every once and a while I feel like my wife did when she was locked in the car. This is a very nice and sporty car, however, where did they put those pesky door locks so I can get on with my business.

Perhaps I should write a note to apple about my experience, maybe I can inspire a MAC and PC Guy ad.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

 

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The idea for this post came from a Mark McQueen post at the Wellington Fund entitled “BCE Takeover part 10”. After my experience with getting my website up and running last week, the post struck a chord.

There is an incredible amount of focus from the various service providers in Canada on customer acquisition, however, there does not appear to be nearly as much effort put into customer retention. To add some weight to this point I thought I would list a number of the metrics that were published in Bell, Rogers and Telus Q1 management and discussion reports. Metrics are an indication of how companies measure what is important.

Telus: ARPU, Churn, Lifetime Revenue Subscriber, COA Gross, COA Net, MOU
Rogers: ARPU, Churn, COA Gross, COA Net, MOU
Bell: ARPU, Churn, Total Minute Volume, ARPM

Some general comments on the management and discussion reports. Rogers and Telus reports are presented in a similar fashion and it is easy to find the information you are looking for because they have summary tables and a logical flow. Bell embeds all their numbers in large blocks of text  with minimal use of summary tables. The Bell report has fewer metrics than Rogers and Telus and some metrics that neither of the others have such as Total minute volume. This makes it difficult to compare Bells results to the others, … hmmm.

Telus actually has some metrics that I would consider close to customer retention metric with their Lifetime revenue per subscriber.  This seems to provide an indication of customer loyalty. Rogers and Bell do not have a similar metric. Rogers does share many of the other metrics with Telus including COA and MOU. Bell is on a different planet and keeps their churn rates close to their chest, although MOU can be determined if you divide their total minute volume by subscribers .

When you consider what is measured and that the marketing efforts of all these companies are geared toward getting new customers rather than retaining existing customers. It is no wonder the churn numbers are so large. Perhaps offering existing loyal customers better deals would prove more cost effective than always trying to sway those customers that jump at the next best offer.  Just a thought.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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I had a great chat with a budding Entrepreneur regarding TheCodeFactory this morning and was impressed by this persons pluck. In fact this reminded me a story from Napoleon Hills Think and Grow Rich. I read think and grow rich a couple of years ago after a cousin recommended it to me while at another cousins (I have a lot of cousins) wedding outside the hall having a cigar and discussing life and success.

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The issues I am having with my website seem to be resolved.

What I did find; alarming, amusing and perhaps a reflection on this particular company are the fact that one of their speed dial functions is:

“To complain to senior management please press 4.”

To have enough demand to warrant such a speed dial key is a bit concerning.

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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Demo Camp - 15 minutes of fame and feedback.

Fun, Friendly, Informal.

6 Demos, lots of entrepreneurial people, beer and No power point.

Monday 18-June-2007

Clocktower REstaurant on Bank Street, just south of the Queensway on the east side of Bank

Sign up on the wiki @ http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/DemoCampOttawa5

Hope to see you there.

cheers,

Ian Graham

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