by Adam Hartung | Aug 29, 2014 | Current Affairs, In the Whirlpool, Leadership
It’s Labor Day, and a time when we naturally think about our jobs.
When it comes to jobs creation, no role is more critical than the CEO. No company will enter into a growth phase, selling more product and expanding employment, unless the CEO agrees. Likewise, no company will shrink, incurring job losses due to layoffs and mass firings, unless the CEO agrees. Both decisions lay at the foot of the CEO, and it is his/her skill that determines whether a company adds jobs, or deletes them.
Over 2 years ago (5 May, 2012) I published “The 5 CEOs Who Should Be Fired.” Not surprisingly, since then employment at all 5 of these companies has lagged economic growth, and in all but one case employment has shrunk. Yet, 3 of these CEOs remain in their jobs – despite lackluster (and in some cases dismal) performance. And all 5 companies are facing significant struggles, if not imminent failure.
#5 – John Chambers at Cisco
In 2012 it was clear that the market shift to public networks and cloud computing was forever changing the use of network equipment which had made Cisco a modern growth story under long-term CEO Chambers. Yet, since that time there has been no clear improvement in Cisco’s fortunes. Despite 2 controversial reorganizations, and 3 rounds of layoffs, Cisco is no better positioned today to grow than it was before.
Increasingly, CEO Chambers’ actions reorganizations and layoffs look like so many machinations to preserve the company’s legacy rather than a clear vision of where the company will grow next. Employee morale has declined, sales growth has lagged and although the stock has rebounded from 2012 lows, it is still at least 10% short of 2010 highs – even as the S&P hits record highs. While his tenure began with a tremendous growth story, today Cisco is at the doorstep of losing relevancy as excitement turns to cloud service providers like Amazon. And the decline in jobs at Cisco is just one sign of the need for new leadership.
#4 Jeff Immelt at General Electric
When CEO Immelt took over for Jack Welch he had some tough shoes to fill. Jack Welch’s tenure marked an explosion in value creation for the last remaining original Dow Jones Industrials component company. Revenues had grown every year, usually in double digits; profits soared, employment grew tremendously and both suppliers and investors gained as the company grew.
But that all stalled under Immelt. GE has failed to develop even one large new market, or position itself as the kind of leading company it was under Welch. Revenues exceeded $150B in 2009 and 2010, yet have declined since. In 2013 revenues dropped to $142B from $145B in 2012. To maintain revenues the company has been forced to continue selling businesses and downsizing employees every year. Total employment in 2014 is now less than in 2012.
Yet, Mr. Immelt continues to keep his job, even though the stock has been a laggard. From the near $60 it peaked at his arrival, the stock faltered. It regained to $40 in 2007, only to plunge to under $10 as the CEO’s over-reliance on financial services nearly bankrupted the once great manufacturing company in the banking crash of 2009. As the company ponders selling its long-standing trademark appliance business, the stock is still less than half its 2007 value, and under 1/3 its all time high. Where are the jobs? Not GE.
#3 Mike Duke at Wal-Mart
Mr. Duke has left Wal-Mart, but not in great shape. Since 2012 the company has been rocked by scandals, as it came to light the company was most likely bribing government officials in Mexico. Meanwhile, it has failed to defend its work practices at the National Labor Relations Board, and remains embattled regarding alleged discrimination of female employees. The company’s employment practices are regularly the target of unions and those supporting a higher minimum wage.
The company has had 6 consecutive quarters of declining traffic, as sales per store continue to lag – demonstrating leadership’s inability to excite people to shop in their stores as growth shifts to dollar stores. The stock was $70 in 2012, and is now only $75.60, even though the S&P 500 is up about 50%. So far smaller format city stores have not generated much attention, and the company remains far behind leader Amazon in on-line sales. WalMart increasingly looks like a giant trapped in its historical house, which is rapidly delapidating.
One big question to ask is who wants to work for WalMart? In 2013 the company threatened to close all its D.C. stores if the city council put through a higher minimum wage. Yet, since then major cities (San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc.) have either passed, or in the process of passing, local legislation increasing the minimum wage to anywhere from $12.50-$15.00/hour. But there seems no response from WalMart on how it will create profits as its costs rise.
#2 Ed Lampert at Sears
Nine straight quarterly losses. That about says it all for struggling Sears. Since the 5/2012 column the CEO has shuttered several stores, and sales continue dropping at those that remain open. Industry pundits now call Sears irrelevant, and the question is looming whether it will follow Radio Shack into oblivion soon.
CEO Lampert has singlehandedly destroyed the Sears brand, as well as that of its namesake products such as Kenmore and Diehard. He has laid off thousands of employees as he consolidated stores, yet he has been unable to capture any value from the unused real estate. Meanwhile, the leadership team has been the quintessential example of “a revolving door at headquarters.” From about $50/share 5/2012 (well off the peak of $190 in 2007,) the stock has dropped to the mid-$30s which is about where it was in its first year of Lampert leadership (2004.)
Without a doubt, Mr. Lampert has overtaken the reigns as the worst CEO of a large, publicly traded corporation in America (now that Steve Ballmer has resigned – see next item.)
#1 Steve Ballmer at Microsoft
In 2013 Steve Ballmer resigned as CEO of Microsoft. After being replaced, within a year he resigned as a Board member. Both events triggered analyst enthusiasm, and the stock rose.
However, Mr. Ballmer left Microsoft in far worse condition after his decade of leadership. Microsoft missed the market shift to mobile, over-investing in Windows 8 to shore up PC sales and buying Nokia at a premium to try and catch the market. Unfortunately Windows 8 has not been a success, especially in mobile where it has less than 5% share. Surface tablets were written down, and now console sales are declining as gamers go mobile.
As a result the new CEO has been forced to make layoffs in all divisions – most substantially in the mobile handset (formerly Nokia) business – since I positioned Mr. Ballmer as America’s worst CEO in 2012. Job growth appears highly unlikely at Microsoft.
“CEOs – From Makers to Takers”
Forbes colleague Steve Denning has written an excellent column on the transformation of CEOs from those who make businesses, to those who take from businesses. Far too many CEOs focus on personal net worth building, making enormous compensation regardless of company performance. Money is spent on inflated pay, stock buybacks and managing short-term earnings to maximize bonuses. Too often immediate cost savings, such as from outsourcing, drive bad long-term decisions.
CEOs are the ones who determine how our collective national resources are invested. The private economy, which they control, is vastly larger than any spending by the government. Harvard professor William Lazonick details how between 2003 and 2012 CEOs gave back 54% of all earnings in share buybacks (to drive up stock prices short term) and handed out another 37% in dividends. Investors may have gained, but it’s hard to create jobs (and for a nation to prosper) when only 9% of all earnings for a decade go into building new businesses!
There are great CEOs out there. Steve Jobs and his replacement Tim Cook increased revenues and employment dramatically at Apple. Jeff Bezos made Amazon into an enviable growth machine, producing revenues and jobs. These leaders are focused on doing what it takes to grow their companies, and as a result the jobs in America.
It’s just too bad the 5 fellows profiled above have done more to destroy value than create it.
by Adam Hartung | Jul 18, 2013 | Current Affairs, Defend & Extend, In the Whirlpool, Leadership, Lock-in
Sears has performed horribly since acquired by Fast Eddie Lampert's KMart in 2005. Revenues are down 25%, same store sales have declined persistently, store margins have eroded and the company has recently taken to reporting losses. There really hasn't been any good news for Sears since the acquisition.
Bloomberg Businessweek made a frontal assault on CEO Edward Lampert's leadership at Sears this week. Over several pages the article details how a "free market" organization installed by Mr. Lampert led to rampant internal warfare and an inability for the company to move forward effectively with programs to improve sales or profits. Meanwhile customer satisfaction has declined, and formerly valuable brands such as Kenmore and Craftsman have become industry also-rans.
Because the Lampert controlled hedge fund ESL Investments is the largest investor in Sears, Mr. Lampert has no risk of being fired. Even if Nobel winner Paul Krugman blasts away at him. But, if performance has been so bad – for so long – why does the embattled Mr. Lampert continue to lead in the same way? Why doesn't he "fire" himself?
By all accounts Mr. Lampert is a very smart man. Yale summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, he was a protege of former Treasury Secretay Robert Rubin at Goldman Sach before convincing billionaire Richard Rainwater to fund his start-up hedge fund – and quickly make himself the wealthiest citizen in Connecticut.
If the problems at Sears are so obvious to investors, industry analysts, economics professors, management gurus and journalists why doesn't he simply change?
Mr. Lampert, largely because of his success, is a victim of BIAS. Deep within his decision making are his closely held Beliefs, Interpretations, Assumptions and Strategies. These were created during his formative years in college and business. This BIAS was part of what drove his early success in Goldman, and ESL. This BIAS is now part of his success formula – an entire set of deeply held convictions about what works, and what doesn't, that are not addressed, discussed or even considered when Mr. Lampert and his team grind away daily trying to "fix" declining Sears Holdings.
This BIAS is so strong that not even failure challenges them. Mr. Lampert believes there is deep value in conventional retail, and real estate. He believes strongly in using "free market competition" to allocate resources. He believes in himself, and he believes he is adding value, even if nobody else can see it.
Mr. Lampert assumes that if he allows his managers to fight for resources, the best programs will reach the top (him) for resourcing. He assumes that the historical value in Sears and its house brands will remain, and he merely needs to unleash that value to a free market system for it to be captured. He assumes that because revenues remain around $35B Sears is not irrelevant to the retail landscape, and the company will be revitalized if just the right ideas bubble up from management.
Mr. Lampert inteprets the results very different from analysts. Where outsiders complain about revenue reductions overall and same store, he interprets this as an acceptable part of streamlining. When outsiders say that store closings and reduced labor hurt the brand, he interprets this as value-added cost savings. When losses appear as a result of downsizing he interprets this as short-term accounting that will not matter long-term. While most investors and analysts fret about the overall decline in sales and brands Mr. Lampert interprets growing sales of a small integrated retail program as a success that can turn around the sinking behemoth.
Mr. Lampert's strategy is to identify "deep value" and then tenaciously cut costs, including micro-managing senior staff with daily calls. He believes this worked for Warren Buffett, so he believes it will continue to be a successful strategy. Whether such deep value continues to exist – especially in conventional retail – can be challenged by outsiders (don't forget Buffett lost money on Pier 1,) but it is part of his core strategy and will not be challenged. Whether cost cutting does more harm than good is an unchallenged strategy. Whether micro-managing staff eats up precious resources and leads to unproductive behavior is a leadership strategy that will not change. Hiring younger employees, who resemble Mr. Lampert in quick thinking and intellect (if not industry knowledge or proven leadership skills) is a strategy that will be applied even as the revolving door at headquarters spins.
The retail market has changed dramatically, and incredibly quickly. Advances in internet shopping, technology for on-line shopping (from mobile devices to mobile payments) and rapid delivery have forever altered the economics of retailing. Customer ease of showrooming, and desire to shop remotely means conventional retail has shrunk, and will continue to shrink for several years. This means the real challenge for Sears is not to be a better Sears as it was in 2000 — but to become something very different that can compete with both WalMart and Amazon – and consumer goods manufacturers like GE (appliances) and Exide (car batteries.)
There is no doubt Mr. Lampert is a very smart person. He has made a fortune. But, he and Sears are a victim of his BIAS. Poor results, bad magazine articles and even customer complaints are no match for the BIAS so firmly underlying early success. Even though the market has changed, Mr. Lampert's BIAS has him (and his company) in internal turmoil, year after year, even though long ago outsiders gave up on expecting a better result.
Even if Sears Holdings someday finds itself in bankruptcy court, expect Mr. Lampert to interpret this as something other than a failure – as he defends his BIAS better than he defends its shareholders, employees, suppliers and customers.
What is your BIAS? Are you managing for the needs of changing markets, or working hard to defend doing more of what worked in a bygone era? As a leader, are you targeting the future, or trying to recapture the past? Have market shifts made your beliefs outdated, your interpretations of what happens around you faulty, your assumptions inaccurate and your strategies hurting results? If any of this is true, it may be time you address (and change) your BIAS, rather than continuing to invest in more of the same. Or you may well end up like Sears.
by Adam Hartung | Aug 9, 2012 | Current Affairs, Defend & Extend, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
McDonald’s is in a Growth Stall. Even though the stock is less than 10% off its recent 52 week high (which is about the same high it’s had since the start of 2012,) the odds of McDonald’s equity going down are nearly 10x the odds of it achieving new highs.
A Growth Stall occurs when a company has 2 consecutive quarters of declining sales or earnings, or 2 consecutive quarters of lower sales or earnings than the previous year. And our research, in conjunction with The Conference Board, proved that when this happens the future becomes fairly easy to predict.
Growth Stalls are Deadly
When companies hit a growth Stall, 93% of the time they are unable to maintain even a 2% growth rate. 55% fall into a consistent revenue decline of more than 2%. 1 in 5 drop into a negative 6%/year revenue slide. 69% of Growth Stalled companies will lose at least half their market capitalization in just a few years. 95% will lose more than 25% of their market value.
Back in February, McDonalds sales in USA stores open at least 13 months fell 1.4%. By May these same stores reported reported their 7th consecutive month (now more than 2 quarters) of declining revenues. And in July McDonald’s reported the worst sales decline in over a decade – with stores globally selling 2.5% less (USA stores were down 3.2% for the month.) McDonald’s leadership is now warning that annual sales will be weaker than forecast – and could well be a reported decline.
While McDonald’s has been saying that Asian store revenue growth had offset the USA declines, we now can see that the USA drop is the key signal of a stall. There was no specific program in Asia to indicate that offshore revenues could create a renewed uptick in USA sales. Now with offshore sales plummeting we can see that McDonald’s American performance is the lead indicator of a company with serious performance issues.
Growth Stalls are a great forecasting tool because they indicate when a company has become “out of step” with its marketplace. While management, and in fact many analysts, will claim that this performance deficit is a short term aberration which will be repaired in coming months, historical evidence — and a plethora of case stories – tell us that in fact by the time a Growth Stall shows itself (especially in a company as large as McDonald’s) the situation is far more dire (and systemic) than management would like investors to believe.
Something fundamental has happened in the marketplace, and company leadership is busy trying to defend its historical business in the face of a major change that is pulling customers toward substitute solutions. Frequently this defend & extend approach exacerbates the problems as retrenchment efforts further hurt revenues.
McDonald’s has reached this inflection point as the result of a long string of leadership decisions which have worked to submarine long-term value.
Back in 2006 McDonald’s sold its fast growing Chipotle chain in order to raise additional funds to close some McDonald’s stores, and undertake an overhaul of the supply chain as well as many remaining stores. This one-time event was initially good for McDonald’s, but it hurt shareholders by letting go of an enormously successful revenue growth machine.
Since that sale Chipotle has outperformed McDonalds by 3x, and it was clear in 2011 that investors were better off with the faster growing Chipotle than the operationally focused McDonald’s. Desperate for revenues as its products lagged changing customer tastes, by December, 2012 McDonald’s was urging franchisees to stay open on Christmas Day in order to add just a bit more to the top line. However, such operational tactics cannot overcome a product line that is fat-and-carb-heavy and off current customer food trends, and by this July was ranked the worst burger in the marketplace. Meanwhile McDonald’s customer service this June ranked dead last in the industry. All telltale signs of the problems creating the emergent Growth Stall.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s is facing a significant attack on its business model as trends turn toward higher minimum wages. By August, 2013 the first signs of the trend were clear – and the impact on McDonald’s long-term fortunes were put in question. By February, 2014 the trend was accelerating, yet McDonald’s continued ignoring the situation. And this month the issue has become a front-and-center problem for McDonald’s investors as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has said it will not separate McDonald’s from its franchisees in pay and hours disputes – something which opens McDonald’s deep pockets to litigants looking to build on the living wage trend.
The McDonald’s CEO is somewhat “under seige” due to the poor revenue and earnings reports. Yet, the company continues to ascribe its Growth Stall to short-term problems such as a meat processing scandal in China. But this inverts the real situation. Such scandals are not the cause of current poor results. Rather, they are the outcome of actions taken to meet goals set by leadership pushing too hard, trying to achieve too much, by defending and extending an outdated success formula desperately in need of change to meet new competitive market conditions.
Application of Growth Stall analysis has historically been very valuable. In May, 2009 I reported on the Growth Stall at Motorola which threatened to dramatically lower company value. Subsequently Motorola spun off its money losing phone business, sold other assets and businesses, and is now a very small remnant of the business prior to its Growth Stall; which was brought on by an overwhelming market shift to smartphones from 2-way radios and traditional cell phones.
In February, 2008 a Growth Stall at General Electric indicated the company would struggle to reach historical performance for long-term investors. The stock peaked at $57.80 in 2000, then at $41.40 in July, 2007. By January, 2009 (post Stall) the company had crashed to only $10, and even recent higher valuations ($28 in 10/2013) are still far from the all-time highs – or even highs in the last decade.
In May, 2008 the Growth Stall at AIG portended big problems for the Dow Jones Industrial (DJIA) giant as financial markets continued to shift radically and quickly. By the end of 2008 AIG stock cratered and the company was forced to wipe out shareholders completely in a government-backed restructuring.
Perhaps the most compelling case has been Microsoft. By February, 2010 a Growth Stall was impending (and confirmed by May, 2011) warning of big changes for the tech giant. Mobile device sales exploded, sending Apple and Google stocks soaring, while Microsoft’s primary, core market for PCs (and software for PCs) has fallen into decline. Windows 8 subsequently had a tepid market acceptance, and gained no traction in mobile devices, causing Microsoft to write-off its investment in the Surface tablet. Recent announcements about enormous lay-offs, with vast cuts in the acquired Nokia handheld unit, do not bode well for long-term revenue growth at the decaying (yet cash rich) giant.
As the Dow has surged to record highs, it has lifted all boats. Including those companies which are showing serious problems. It is easy to look at the ubiquity of McDonald’s stores and expect the chain to remain forever dominant. But, the company is facing serious strategic problems with its products, service and business model which leadership has shown no sign of addressing. The recent Growth Stall serves as a key long-term indicator that McDonald’s is facing serious problems which will most likely seriously jeopardize investors’ (as well as employees’, suppliers’ and supporting communities’) potential returns.
by Adam Hartung | May 12, 2012 | Current Affairs, Defend & Extend, In the Swamp, In the Whirlpool, Leadership, Web/Tech
This has been quite the week for CEO mistakes. First was all the hubbub about Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo, inflating his resume to include a computer science degree he did not actually receive. According to Mr. Thompson someone at a recruiting firm added that degree claim in 2005, he didn't know it and he's never read his bio since. A simple oversight, if you can believe he hasn't once read his bio in 7 years, and he didn't think it was ever important to correct someone who introduced him or mentioned it. OOPS – the easy answer for someone making several million dollars per year, and trying to guide a very troubled company from the brink of failure. Hopefully he is more persistent about checking company facts.
But luckily for him, his errors were trumped on Thursday when Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P.MorganChase notified the world that the bank's hedging operation messed up and lost $2B!! OOPS! According to Mr. Dimon this is really no big deal. Which reminded me of the apocryphal Senator Everett Dirksen statement "a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon it all adds up to real money!"
Interesting "little" mistake from a guy who paid himself some $50M a few years ago, and benefitted greatly from the government TARP program. He said this would be "fodder for pundits," as if we all should simply overlook losing $2B? He also said this was "unfortunate timing." As if there's a good time to lose $2B?
But neither of these problems will likely result in the CEOs losing their jobs. As obviously damaging as both mistakes are, which would naturally have caused us mere employees to instantly lose our jobs – and potentially be prosecuted – CEOs are a rare breed who are allowed wide lattitude in their behavior. These are "one off" events that gain a lot of attention, but the media will have forgotten within a few days, and everyone else within a few months.
By comparison, there are at least 5 CEOs that make these 2 mistakes appear pretty small. For these 5, frequently honored for their position, control of resources and personal wealth, they are doing horrific damage to their companies, hurting investors, employees, suppliers and the communities that rely on their organizations. They should have been fired long before this week.
#5 – John Chambers, Cisco Systems. Mr. Chambers is the longest serving CEO on this list, having led Cisco since 1995 and championed much of its rapid growth as corporations around the world began installing networks. Cisco's stock reached $70/share in 2001. But since then a combination of recessions that cut corporate IT budgets and a market shift to cloud computing has left Cisco scrambling for a strategy, and growth.
Mr. Chambers appears to have been great at operating Cisco as long as he was in a growth market. But since customers turned to cloud computing and greater use of mobile telephony networks Cisco has been unable to innovate, launch and grow new markets for cloud storage, services or applications. Mr. Chambers has reorganized the company 3 times – but it has been much like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Lots of confusion, but no improvement in results.
Between 2001 and 2007 the stock lost half its value, falling to $35. Continuing its slide, since 2007 the stock has halved again, now trading around $17. And there is no sign of new life for Cisco – as each earnings call reinforces a company lacking a strategy in a shifting market. If ever there was a need for replacing a stayed-in-the-job too long CEO it would be Cisco.
#4 – Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric (GE). GE has only had 9 CEOs in its 100+ year life. But this last one has been a doozy. After more than a decade of rapid growth in revenue, profits and valuation under the disruptive "neutron" Jack Welch, GE stock reached $60 in 2000. Which turns out to have been the peak, as GE's value has gone nowhere but down since Mr. Immelt took the top job.
GE was once known for entering and changing markets, unafraid to disrupt how the market performed with innovation in products, supply chain and operations. There was no market too distant, or too locked-in for GE to not find a way to change to its advantage – and profit. But what was the last market we saw GE develop? What has Mr. Immelt, in his decade at the top of GE, done to keep GE as one of the world's most innovative, high growth companies? He has steered the ship away from trouble, but it's only gone in circles as it's used up fuel.
From that high in 2001, GE fell to a low of $8 in 2009 as the financial crisis revealed that under Mr. Immelt GE had largely transitioned from a manufacturing and products company into a financial house. He had taken what was then the easy road to managing money, rather than managing a products and services company. Saved from bankruptcy by a lucrative Berkshire Hathaway, GE lived on. But it's stock is still only $19, down 2/3 from when Mr. Immelt took the CEO position.
"Stewardship" is insufficient leadership in 2012. Today markets shift rapidly, incur intensive global competition and require constant innovation. Mr. Immelt has no vision to propel GE's growth, and should have been gone by 2010, rather than allowed to muddle along with middling performance.
#3 – Mike Duke, WalMart. Mr. Duke has been CEO since 2009, but prior to that he was head of WalMart International. We now know Mr. Duke's business unit saw no problems with bribing foreign officials to grow its business. Just on the basis of knowing about illegal activity, not doing anything about it (and probably condoning and recommending more,) and then trying to change U.S. law to diminish the legal repurcussions, Mr. Duke should have long ago been fired.
It's clear that internally the company and its Board new Mr. Duke was willing to do anything to try and grow WalMart, even if unethical and potentially illegal. Recollections of Enron's Jeff Skilling, Worldcom's Bernie Ebbers and Hollinger's Conrdad Black should be in our heads. How far do we allow leaders to go before holding them accountable?
But worse, not even bribes will save WalMart as Mr. Duke follows a worn-out strategy unfit for competition in 2012. The entire retail market is shifting, with much lower cost on-line companies offering more selection at lower prices. And increasingly these companies are pioneering new technologies to accelerate on-line shopping with easy to use mobile devices, and new apps that make shopping, paying and tracking deliveries easier all the time. But WalMart has largely eschewed the on-line world as its CEO has doggedly sticks with WalMart doing more of the same. That pursuit has limited WalMart's growth, and margins, while the company files further behind competitively.
Unfortunately, WalMart peaked at about $70 in 2000, and has been flat ever since. Investors have gained nothing from this strategy, while employees often work for wages that leave them on the poverty line and without benefits. Scandals across all management layers are embarrassing. Communities find Walmart a mixed bag, initially lowering prices on some goods, but inevitably gutting the local retailers and leaving the community with no local market suppliers. WalMart needs an entirely new strategy to remain viable – and that will not come from Mr. Duke. He should have been gone long before the recent scandal, and surely now.
#2 Edward Lampert, Sears Holdings. OK, Mr. Lampert is the Chairman and not the CEO – but there is no doubt who calls the shots at Sears. And as Mr. Lampert has called the shots, nobody has gained.
Once the most critical force in retailing, since Mr. Lampert took over Sears has become wholly irrelevant. Hoping that Mr. Lampert could make hay out of the vast real estate holdings, and once glorious brands Craftsman, Kenmore and Diehard to turn around the struggling giant, the stock initially took off rising from $30 in 2004 to $170 in 2007 as Jim Cramer of "Mad Money" fame flogged the stock over and over on his rant-a-thon show. But when it was clear results were constantly worsening, as revenues and same-store-sales kept declining, the stock fell out of bed dropping into the $30s in 2009 and again in 2012.
Hope springs eternal in the micro-managing Mr. Lampert. Everyone knows of his personal fortune (#367 on Forbes list of billionaires.) But Mr. Lampert has destroyed Sears. The company may already be so far gone as to be unsavable. The stock price is based upon speculation of asset sales. Mr. Lampert had no idea, from the beginning, how to create value from Sears and he surely should have been gone many months ago as the hyped expectations demonstrably never happened.
#1 – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft. Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company. Not only has he singlehandedly steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, handsets and tablets) but in the process he has sacrificed the growth and profits of not only his company but "ecosystem" companies such as Dell, Hewlett Packard and even Nokia. The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value – and jobs.
Microsoft peaked at $60/share in 2000, just as Mr. Ballmer took the reigns. By 2002 it had fallen into the $20s, and has only rarely made it back to its current low $30s value. And no wonder, since execution of new rollouts were constantly delayed, and ended up with products so lacking in any enhanced value that they left customers scrambling to find ways to avoid upgrades. By Mr. Ballmer's own admission Vista had over 200 man-years too much cost, and its launch still, years late, has users avoiding upgrades. Microsoft 7 and Office 2012 did nothing to excite tech users, in corporations or at home, as Apple took the leadership position in personal technology.
So today Microsoft, after dumping Zune, dumping its tablet, dumping Windows CE and other mobile products, is still the same company Mr. Ballmer took control over a decade ago. Microsoft is PC company, nothing more, as demand for PCs shifts to mobile. Years late to market, he has bet the company on Windows 8 – as well as the future of Dell, HP, Nokia and others. An insane bet for any CEO – and one that would have been avoided entirely had the Microsoft Board replaced Mr. Ballmer years ago with a CEO that understands the fast pace of technology shifts and would have kept Microsoft current with market trends.
Although he's #19 on Forbes list of billionaires, Mr. Ballmer should not be allowed to take such incredible risks with investor money and employee jobs. Best he be retired to enjoy his fortune rather than deprive investors and employees of building theirs.
There were a lot of notable CEO changes already in 2012. Research in Motion, Best Buy and American Airlines are just three examples. But the 5 CEOs in this column are well on the way to leading their companies into the kind of problems those 3 have already discovered. Hopefully the Boards will start to pay closer attention, and take action before things worsen.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 14, 2012 | Current Affairs, Leadership, Transparency, Web/Tech
Apple's amazing increase in value is more than just a "rah-rah" story for a turnaround. Fundamentally, Apple is telling everyone – globally – that there has been a tectonic shift in markets. And if leaders don't understand this shift, and incorporate it into their strategy and tactics, their organizations are going to have a very difficult future.
Recently Apple's value peaked at $600B. Yes, that is an astounding number, for it reflects not only 50% greater value than the oil giant Exxon/Mobil (~$390B), but more than the entire value of the stock markets in Spain, Greece and Portugal combined!
Source: Business Insider.com
This astounding valuation causes many to be reticent about owning Apple shares, for it seems implausible that any one company – especially a tech company with so few employees – could be worth so much.
Unless we look at this information in the context of a major, global economic shift. That what the world values has changed dramatically. And that what investors are telling business (and government) leaders is that in a globalized, fast paced world value is based upon what you know, when you know it – in other words information. Not land, buildings or the ability to make things.
Three hundred years ago the wealthiest people in the world owned land. Wars were fought for centuries to control land. Kings owned land, and controlled everything on the land while capturing the value of everything produced on that land. As changes came along, reducing the role of kings, land barons became the wealthiest people in the world. In an agrarian economy, where most human resources (and all others for that matter) were deployed in food production owning land was the most valuable thing on the planet.
But then some 120 years ago, along came the industrial reveolution. Suddenly, productivity rose dramatically by applying new machines to jobs formerly performed by humans. With this shift, value changed. The great industrialists were able to capture the value of greater productivity – making people like Cyrus McCormick, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie the wealthiest of the wealthy. Worth more than most states, and many foreign countries.
The age of manufacturing was based upon the productivity of machines and the application of industrial processes to what formerly was hand labor. Creating tools – from entignes to automobiles to airplanes – created great wealth. Knowing how to make these machines, and making them, created enormous value. And companies like General Motors, General Dynamics and General Electric were worth much more than the land upon which food was produced. And the commodity suppliers, like Exxon/Mobil, feeding industrial companies captured huge value as well.
By the middle 1900s America's farmers were forced to create ever larger farms to remain in business, and were constantly begging for government subsidies to stay alive via price controls (parity programs) and land "set-asides" run by the Agriculture Department. By the 1980s family farms going broke by the thousands, agricultural land values plummeted and the ability to create value by growing or processing food was a struggle. Across the developed world, wealth shifted into the hands of industrial companies from landowners.
Sometime in the 1990s the world shifted again, and that's what the chart above shows us. Countries with little or no technology companies – no information economy – cannot create value. On the other hand, companies that can drive new levels of productivity via the creation, management, use and sale of information can create enormous value.
Think about the incredible shift that has happened in retail. America's largest and most successful retailer from the 1900 turn of the century well into the 1960s was Sears. In an industry that long equated success with "location, location, location" Sears has had, and continues to control, enormous amounts of land and buildings. But the value of Sears has declined like a stone pitched off a bridge, now worth only $6B (1% the Apple value) despite all that real estate!
Simultaneously, America's largest retailer Wal-Mart has seen its value go nowhere for over a decade, despite its thousands of locations that span every state. Even though Wal-Mart keeps adding stores, and enlarging stores, adding more and more land and buildings to its "asset" base the company's customer base, sales and value are mired, unable to rise.
Yet, Amazon – which has no land, and almost no buildings – has used the last 20 years to go from start up to an $86B valuation – doing much better for shareholders than its traditional, industrial thinking competitors. In the last 5 years, Amazon's value has roughly quadrupled!
Source: Yahoo Finance
Yes, Amazon is a retailer. But the company has learned that applying an industrial strategy is far less valuable than applying an information strategy. As an internet leader, first with most browser formats on PCs and smartphones, Amazon has reached far more new customers than any traditional real-estate focused company. By launching Kindle Amazon focused on the information in books, rather than the format (print) revolutionizing the market and capturing enormous value.
By launching Kindle Fire Amazon takes information one step further, making it possible for customers to access new products faster, order faster and build their own retail world without ever going to a building. By becoming a tech company, Amazon is clearly well on the way to dominating retail, as Sears falls into irrelevancy and almost surely bankruptcy, and Wal-Mart stalls under the overhead of all that land, buildings and vast number of minimum-wage, uninsured employees.
We now must realize that value is not created by what accountants have long called "hard assets" – land, buildings and equipment. In fact, the 2 great U.S. recessions since 2000 have demonstrated to everyone that there is no security in these – the value can decline, decline fast, and decline far. Just because these things are easy to see and count does not insure value. They can easily be worth less than they cost to make – or own.
Successful competition in 2012 (and going forward) requires businesses know about customers, products and have the ability to supply solutions fast with great reach. Winning is about what you know, knowing it early, acting upon the information and then being able to disseminate that solution fast to those who have emerging needs.
Which is why you have to be excited about the brilliant move Facebook made to acquire Instagram last week. In one fast, quick step Facebook bought the ability to easily and effectively provide mobile image solutions – across any application – to millions of existing users. Something that every single person, and business, on the planet is either doing now, or will be doing very soon.
Source: Wired
On a cost-per-existing-customer basis, Facebook stole Instagram. And that's before Facebook spreads out the solution to the rest of its 780million users! Forget about how many employees Instagram has, or its historical revenues or its assets. In an innovation economy, if you have a product that 35million people hear about and start using in less than a year, you have something very valuable!
Kudos go to Mark Zuckerberg as CEO, and his team, for making this acquisition so quickly. Before Instagram had a chance to hire bankers, market itself and probably raise its value 10x. That's why Mr. Zuckerberg was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" at the start of 2011 – and why he's been able to create so much more value for his shareholders than the CEOs of industrial companies – like say GE.
Going forward, no company can plan to survive with an industrial strategy. That approach, and those rules, simply don't create high returns. To be successful you MUST become a tech company. And while this may not feel comfortable, it is reality. Every business must shift, or die.
