Written by Helene Abrams Sunday, April 20 2008
It’s official. A growing number of experts acknowledge we’re in a recession.
Although Wall Street has tried to avoid saying the “R word,” the good news is that the U.S. economy will improve. And smart business owners know that by planting the right seeds during the current downturn, their companies can harvest a bumper crop on the other end of the slowdown. Here are a few time-tested perennials sure to reap big rewards.
Weed Your Garden
This is a good time to focus on your company’s core competencies and eliminate redundancies and underperforming products and divisions. Sell off areas that are not aligned with your core values so that your precious financial and human resources can be used to help drive profitability in the areas that are performing well. For example, Compton Petroleum Corp.’s three-year projection of its operating plans, which revealed a large funding gap, brought industry speculation that Compton would need to sell significant assets, beginning with non-core assets, to solve cash-flow problems, according to a CNN Money report. In another example, a major U.S. bank saved $30 million a year by cleaning up and consolidating duplicate data following a series of acquisitions, according to an IBM report. By reducing redundant processes, consolidating systems and sloughing off areas negatively impacting companies, CEO’s will be in a much better position to take on new business in the future.
Start Large Projects Now
This may sound counterintuitive. But during a recession, the sales cycle will necessarily take longer, so companies can turn this into a plus by using the extra time to focus on quality. Additional testing will help ensure new products have adequate time to mature before entering the market.
Buyer’s Market
For those companies that find themselves cash rich, the recession can be a bargain hunter’s dream. Low interest rates and a bounty of distressed companies looking for infusion of cash provide attractive opportunities; but it’s a good deal only when it adds value to the parent company. In the earlier Compton example, Centennial Energy Partners said publicly that they thought Compton was an “opportunity-rich company” and asked the Compton board of directors to consider selling its company to Centennial.
Stay Connected
Hard times provide exceptional opportunities to build customer loyalty. Make sure you begin the process by keeping your employees and investors informed of any changes. This not only has a calming effect but also ensures that the public receives consistent, accurate messages. Customers appreciate it when a business is willing to work with them on pricing and flexible financial arrangements. When the economy improves, they will remember how companies treated them when times were tough. By following these common-sense strategies, businesses can not only survive a recession but actually thrive.
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January Puzzle
A traveler gets lost on a deserted island and finds himself surrounded by a group of n cannibals.
Each cannibal wants to eat the traveler but, as each knows, there is a risk. A cannibal that attacks and eats the traveler would become tired and defenseless. After he eats, he would become an easy target for another cannibal (who would also become tired and defenseless after eating).
The cannibals are all hungry, but they cannot trust each other to cooperate. The cannibals happen to be well versed in game theory, so they will think before making a move.
Does the nearest cannibal, or any cannibal in the group, devour the lost traveler?
Solution
The short answer is the traveler’s fate depends on the parity of the group. If there is an odd number of canibals, the traveler will be eaten, but if there is an even number, the traveler will survive.
To prove this, we will consider small groups and use mathematical induction to explain the solution for larger groups.
Case n = 1: this is an obvious case. If there is one cannibal, the traveler will be eaten. It doesn’t matter that the cannibal will get tired because there are no other cannibals around as a threat.
Case n = 2: this is a more interesting case. Each cannibal wishes to each the traveler, but each knows he cannot. If either cannibal eats the traveler, then he will become defenseless and the other one will eat him. So each cannibal uses backwards induction to realize that the only strategy is to not eat the traveler. The hapless traveler finds a bit of luck, therefore, and actually survives.
Case n = 3: this is where the problem gets interesting. The best strategy is for the closest cannibal to make a move and eat the traveler. The cannibal will be defenseless after eating, but ultimately he will be safe. Why is that? The reasoning is due to induction: once the cannibal eats the traveler, the resulting situation has 2 unfed cannibals and the 1 defenseless cannibal. But as we just showed above, when there are 2 unfed cannibals, neither will make a move for fear of being eaten by the other! Thus the first cannibal to make a move will be safe as the remaining 2 cannibals block each other.
We can prove the higher cases using mathematical induction. If the number n is odd, then the closest cannibal can safely eat the traveler because the remaining number of unfed cannibals is even (and by induction, with an even number of unfed cannibals no one makes a move). If the number n is even, then no cannibal will eat the traveler, for if he did, the remaining number of cannibals would be odd, meaning he will get eaten by the induction hypothesis.
Success Tips for Oracle Project Management
- Create a standard for documentation at the beginning of your project, and hold team members accountable for completing documentation requirements as well as keeping them at and above the standards required.
- Before promulgating user documentation or training, it’s also a good idea to choose a representative from the among the business users base to review materials first.
- If you are not sure about the resources and budget required, obtain several estimates from people that have experience with the same size and scope of your project.
- Be explicit, before beginning the project, what internal resources are required for execution. This includes people, infrastructure, hardware, and software.
- Help the project champion understand the impact your project will have on the organization and how its successful completion will make him or her an internal hero or heroine for supporting it.
- Break up your project into smaller projects (try for projects that can be completed in 4-6 months, especially early on) to get success and demonstrate momentum.
- Make sure that your testing includes reports, upstream and downstream interfaces, customizations, enhancements, and workflows.
- Ensure that comprehensive transition reports and meetings between departing and incoming personnel are completed.
- Instead of spending time and resources implementing third-party reporting, consider consolidating multiple instances, moving to a global chart of accounts (CoA), and/or standardizing on a consistent calendar.
- Include governance, risk, and compliance management as part of the project plan.
- Finally, celebrate the successes. Too many projects focus on defects, failures, or small cost over-runs without looking at the big picture and what was accomplished.
The Analyst Corner
John Van Decker, Research VP of Gartner, states:
"A single chart of accounts allows consistency in financial reporting across the enterprise by standardizing on common metrics and reporting structures, reduces dependencies on a separate financial consolidation system, and significantly reduces the costs incurred with ongoing, complex conversions and translations."
