BLOG OF ADAM HARTUNG
Financial Machinations
I have spoken in this blog about Financial Machinations. These are actions taken by management to manipulate the financial results in order to make the Success Formula look better than it really is. In short, financial accounting provides so much flexibility for how...
You Can See It Coming
When you can predict behavior in business it is the first step to taking competitive advantage. When you can predict competitors, you know what to do to beat them. And you can take steps as an investor, employee, supplier or customer to decide how you'll...
Fake-Out
In sports we talk about a player looking to go right and then going left and call that a "fake-out." We're seeing the business equivalent today at Tribune company. In their own paper the company featured an article on a new "hyperlocal"...
Clever competition
Readers of this blog know I think WalMart (see chart here) is horribly Locked-in and thus well into the Swamp. As the chart shows, this has left them with maudlin performance (at best.) I recently posted on their fiasco firing the ad agency as part of firing...
How to Read the Newspaper
Will Rogers once said "All I know is what i read in the newspapers." While many have heard that phrase, few know that the back half was "and of course I'm the most ignorant man alive!" It was his joke that newspapers often obscured...
Falling off the Cliff
Those blog readers from the U.S. could not miss the media bruhaha this week over Don Imus. He was fired for saying some outrageous things on the radio. Don Imus is a self-proclaimed "shock jock". Don made a living for over a decade by saying...
Save Your Way to Prosperity?
Today Citigroup announced it intends to dramatically overhaul operations (see stock chart here). The company will cut 17,000 jobs as it strives to remove $1.2B in expenses. Citigroup says it is doing this in order to grow. Huh? Setting the...
Of excuses and successes
March auto results came out last week. (See article here) Toyota sold 12% more than a year ago. Honda's U.S. sales rose 11%. Nissan's rose 8%. Hyundai and Kia also posted increases. GM sales fell 4%. Ford sales fell 9%. ...
Pay to Lock-in
There are lots of ways to Lock-in a Success Formula, and one of the best is compensation. If the Board of Directors, or management, wants to make sure that Defend & Extend management flourishes, all it has to do is compensate people to do what they've always...
Where’s the Rug?
I've lived in Chicago many years. And anyone who's ever worked in the Loop (that's the downtown area) is familiar with the guys running around in the brightly colored sport coats. You see them on the street every week day, impervious to hot, cold and rain,...
Follow-up on Tribune
The Chicago Tribune on-line published an interview with new owner Sam Zell. You can see full article here, but parts are worth repeating: Q: How do you get your information? Do you read newspapers? Do you read online?Zell: I've never read online. I don't have a...
Run, Don’t Walk
Imagine this: you're in an industry that hasn't changed much in 100 years. For the last 5 years the number of customers has been declining, as have revenues. Your long-time users are aging and younger potential users say they have little interest in your...
Not So Easy Ride(r)
One of the greatest brands in all of marketing is Harley Davidson. One claim to fame is that Harley images are the #1 most tattooed logo in the world. Now, that takes a dedicated customer - or even a non-customer! But Harley is in some trouble, and...
Fleet of Foot
You probably never heard of Glunz. Profiled recently in The Chicago Tribune (see article here), Glunz is a beer distributor. What makes the company interesting is how this 120 year old family owned-and-operated business has succeeded despite severe market...
Tough Week in White Space
Readers of this blog know I've been a real fan of Motorola. I've waxed eloquently about the Disruptions implemented by the new CEO when he came to the company in 2004. And likewise I've been an endorser of the multiple White Space projects he implemented...
Short Wins, Long Losses
In the early 1980's Roger Smith took on the market Challenges facing General Motors. (see chart here) In bold strokes, he expanded GM beyond its old Success Formula including the acquisition of a high tech information company (EDS), a high tech electronics company...
Buying Grandpa’s Medicine
No sooner had I posted the last blog on Ford than the company announced its sale of Aston-Martin. My goodness, the ravages of Lock-in are moving swiftly at Ford! (see chart here) Ford is in deep trouble. The company has announced billions of dolars...
Driving with the Rear View Mirror
When companies Lock-in they quit looking at the marketplace, instead focusing on running their Success Formula. In a very real way, if markets were highways and companies were autos we could say management starts driving the car looking in the rear view mirror...
White Space and Beer
About 6 months ago I blogged on White Space at Anheuser-Busch (see Surprising Juxtaposition here.) This last American-owned large brewer has had its stock go nowhere for the last few years (see chart here) as it has battled fierce competition in a consolidating...
Will This Make Any Difference?
Dell Computer has had a rough go the last couple of years. They've had some batteries catch fire - not good for marketing. And they've had some SEC investigators looking through their books - not good for investors. But neither of these problems are...
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