Busy Ness

I was talking to Mike W the other day, whom I love-no not that way-fag. Our conversation turned to business and I listened as he talked as if right through me, strumming my pain with his fingers, saying my life with his words. Killing me softly with his tale, killing me softly... I realized that the hell that is big business is not unique to rogue companies who buy small companies and exploit them. After thinking about my experience with the Red Menace that I used to work for I formulated the following rant: In business management school they teach students how to manage business. There are two very important parts of that discipline that are sadly overlooked in many cases and it shows. The two aspects are customers and employees. Oh, I could go on all day about how employees are treated in a large business but it seems almost trite. Everyone knows that nobody treats employees well, no business cares about individuals, and employees are 'hot-swappable'. This is for another rant another day.

My beef has to do with the inability of management levels to address real customer needs. I can tell you from personal experience that the higher you climb in a company, the less you talk about customers, the less you care about customers, and the less you do for customers. This seems absurd but it is all too true. I will give you an example ripped from the pages of a business management textbook.

There is a concept known as ‘JND’ which stands for Just Noticeable Difference. This concept allows a company, for example, to maintain the price of a product but reduce its size slightly. So, the 12 oz. can you used to get is now a 10.5 oz. can costing the same. This allows profits to rise because less is produced but sold for the same price. The JND threshold is such that if customers don’t notice the difference, they will continue to consume at the same rate. Revenue forecasts and production rates do not need to fluctuate which holds revenue stead while reducing costs.

I ask you, is this evidence of a customer-centric organization? I answer before you--no. A customer-centric company would not do this to their customers. Their goal would be to reduce costs, maintain product levels, and ultimately deliver more to customers, determine what customers want, and make it easier for them to get it.

As I became more involved with the management of the business I became less involved in running the business the way I would run it. I catered to the stockholders and spent most of my time justifying each move I made to them and to upper management. The problem with this is two-fold. First, you NEVER talk about customers, and second, you tend to be cautious in your approach to your job because you don’t want to have to try to help the c-level managers understand what really needs to be done. Heaven help the guy at Kodak who thought digital cameras were a passing fad…

What you end up with is a bunch of butt-covering, mediocre lemmings that have had the creativity squashed out of them. I can’t tell you how many times I heard comments like, “…if you choose Microsoft, you keep your job.” Tragic.