April 24th, 2006 by Matt
The Dallas Business Journal recently ran a story about the Richards Group, a Dallas-based ad agency that many believe is one of the best in the industry. Stan Richards, the founder and principal, talks with Glenn Hunter of DBJ about his philosophy, his approach to the business of creativity and some of the elements that make the Richards Group such a unique company.
Since its founding (Stan Richards forming an official company in the 1970’s after doing do freelance creative ad work in Dallas since the 1950’s) in the 1970’s, the Richards Group has grown to a 662–employee and $1.1B company. Yet, to read Mr. Richards talk about his company today, one would never guess that it is that big. Richards works hard to make it function like a small, agile company through some very unconventional approaches.
For example, there is a ban on the use of most internal email. Email lends itself to misunderstanding, Richards explains, so he forces people to talk to each other more.
Also, Richards has a four-part criteria when considering a new business opportunity with a client, that he puts in the form of four questions they must answer Yes to:
Continue reading ‘The Richards Group - Keeping a Big Company Small’
January 19th, 2006 by Matt
photo from rahimadatia on flickr
The January 23rd issue of BusinessWeek has a great article about C.J. Prahalad, a business strategist / consultant / professor who has very innovating and challenging views about how global business will change over the next several decades. He points to his native India – specifically to Bombay for this article – and shows that while some people see abject poverty, filth and apparent hopelessness, he sees a hotbed of capitalism and innovation without equal anywhere in “first world” countries.
He goes so far as to argue that the third world economies are producing some of the the best innovations in cost reduction, process efficiency and quality in the world. He looks at the streets of Bombay and sees money-making enterprises – from sugar-cane stands to faxing services to hot dog stands, people are making money – however little it may be – in just about every place you look.
Continue reading ‘The Great Process Innovators of the 21st Century’
January 6th, 2006 by Matt
I just read an article published in November 2005 on the Knowledge@Wharton web site, discussing the research of Mary J. Benner regarding the best ways to apply process management disciplines such as Six Sigma or ISO 9000. Ms. Benner, a former General Manager at Honeywell and now a Professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, began to re-think her own propensity to emphasize process mapping and optimization at Honeywell after she began working on her PhD.
Benner began to wonder if the process disciplines were having a stifling effect on innovation within an organization. She and Harvard Business School professor Michael Tushman have studied the subject since 1998 and have come to some interesting, although reasonable and practical, conclusions. By studying patent activity in the paint and photography industries from 1980 to 1999, they found that the number of patents that related to knowledge that was entirely new to the company decreased in proportion to the number of ISO certifications that a company received.
In other words, the more official process discipline certifications, the fewer new, innovative patents.
Does this mean companies should abandon process quality, discipline and optimization programs like ISO 9000 and Six Sigma?
Continue reading ‘The Value and Challenge of Balancing Process Exploitation and Innovation’