Vague, motherhood and apple pie in a so-called blueprint for success... from Warwick Business School.. How do you follow such a blueprint?
The following six factors were identified:
• A flexible and responsive management approach: Flexibility and effective delegation of decisions enables firms to surpass customer expectations and achieve above average growth
• Business process efficiency: Making active attempts to evaluate and optimise internal processes allows businesses to reduce costs and improve efficiency
• Marketing: Using a variety of marketing methods, such as mailshots and the internet, enables firms to make potential customers aware of products and services more effectively
• Human resources planning: Having a plan for staff development and future employment increases a business’ flexibility and responsiveness and aids its growth aspirations
• Growth ambition: Having a growth objective or ambition shapes a business’ strategy and its willingness to invest in development
• Research and development: A thorough understanding of the markets in which it works, and the best ways of delivering services, enables a business to compete more effectively
Increased uptake of the blueprint among small businesses could generate a further £15bn for the UK economy, the study claimed.
I need to see the report before I can really comment!!!
32 comments:
This is business school bollocks
Poppycock of the first degree. (No pun intended). What have I learnt from the article. Nothing. Why? because it is shallow an insincere. Sponsored by Royal Mail and it suggests "Using a variety of marketing methods, such as mailshots".
Cobblers.
I am amazed that Warwick puts its name to this. It isn't research; my son did more in his first year business degree.
I wonder if David Storey has anything to do with it. I doubt it.
Mark
That's not a blueprint, it's a three year old's etchasketch!
Alan
Unbelievable.
Robert - is this your old Uni. How does it make you feel to see the quality research they are now doing.
What pages of your Kick-Start book did they photocopy for the headings? But it has no substance at all. It is empty.
Madge
Full Warwick Press Release is at
http://www.wbs.warwick.ac.uk/news/releases/2010/06/01/Six/Rules/for
Can't really comment until one has seen the report but the reactions so far need some kind of reply from Warwick... Is there anyone there? Do you use google-alerts?
Yes - I did work at Warwick and their work is usually intellectually rigorous - this may have lost something in translation from 'rules' to 'blueprint'... although "the choose any three of the following six" recipe seems curious.
RC
Rubbish.
Stop defending them.
Madge
It is an April Fool's Day prank. It must be. No substance. Empty. No call to action. Nothing you would seriously use to work with a thrusting entrepreneur.
BLs have used this stuff for ages and it hasn't affected them.(joke)
Tripe.
Being generous you can see that the project points at good and worthy ideals.
I think that the rather extreme response is a result of its flakey suggestions.
"Could do better" is the result.
I am not the most left-brained rule-following of people but this really does seem to take the biscuit.
Comments like:
"Flexibility and effective delegation of decisions enables firms to surpass customer expectations and achieve above average growth"
mean very little. Does anyone actively seek inflexibility or ineffective delegation?
"Making active attempts", "Using a variety of", "Having a plan for", "Having a growth objective or ambition", "A thorough understanding of". Flaccid nonsense.
This comes from the same stable as David Storey's Small Business Sector book? I think not.
This is the type of weak research that gives business schools a bad name. And it explains why small businesses do not trust or believe the likes of Royal Mail.
Shame on anyone associated with this.
Robert did you have anything to do with it?
Sienna
and no-one mentions money, cash, profit or sales!!!!
"the 43% of companies which have adopted this formula benefited from an average sales growth of 17% between 2006 and 2009."
Sorry - what formula? There is no formula.
Warwick - you should be ashamed of yourselves
If you can do it, you do it. If you can't do it, teach it!
Yeah, cliche, I know, but this is BS not business gospel - and why 'advisors' include a 'don't blame us if it goes shit shaped' rider statement.
In principle there is nothing wrong with the six principles:
- A flexible and responsive management approach
- Business process efficiency
- Marketing:
- Human resources planning
- Growth ambition
- Research and development.
What the report appears to lack is any real direction as to what to and what not do.
Other commentators are correct that it is like motherhood and apple pie - it talks a good talk but lacks any sense of reality.
Tell me what can I do to make stuff happen in my business!
Robert - why did you start this debate? After all, isn't this just another version of the Magic Million stuff you were talking about in Worcester yesterday?
Colin
I am not leaping to RC's defence but his Magic Million piece doesn't pretend to be a blueprint for success!
Look at http://www.robert-craven.co.uk/article-elusive-magic-million-GB.php and you will see that he does make recommendations:
"Note to the owner on getting past a £1m turnover:
1. You are the problem
2. Work ON not IN the business – create the systems and processes
3. Sell something that people really want, charge sensible prices, blow them away with legendary service
4. Take massive action.
The company must be able to put ticks in all of the boxes below to find a buyer:
* Systematic, underlying, repeatable, sustainable profit machine
* Reference and trophy clients
* Uniqueness and excellence
* A senior team to take it to the next stage."
This is stuff you can do. Real stuff. Boxes you can tick.
Still no word from Warwick? On holiday or something. Well, they will reply when they are ready.
In some senses it is similar but it is not airey fairey. The actual MM report is better.
and:
"Big caveat number one is “Beware of the ‘Survivorship Bias’!” - we see the winners and learn from them, while forgetting the huge unseen cemetery of losers.
The second beware when people attribute their success to certain key factors or activities - performance (good and bad) is probably related far more to chance than skill, yet people rationalise their success and create a cause/effect explanation."
Jim
Whoah!
A few points:
1) Everyone seems to be searching for a silver bullet, a nice magic formula - it probably doesn't exist but we do know what the good get right.
2) Just because good/successful people do something doesn't make them good/successful.
3) Just because good/successful people do something the failures don't also do doesn't necessarilly make them good/successful.
etc etc
There's plenty of philosophical stuff we can get into around the point/validity of such research.
I suspect that the intense reaction is about how the research has been presented as a universal antedote and blueprint for success with little apparently practical lessons for us entrepreneurial types. Ironically this could all just be marketing hype and spin that is winding us/you up.!
I do wish we had some feedback from WBS and I have asked them (and the prof concerned) to reply but as yet we have heard nothing.
Just because they are not walking around with Blackberries plugged into their ears does not make them bad or dishonourable.
Yes, I used to work at Warwick and do respect much of the work that has come out of the Business School.
And no, I am not defending them.
Regards
Robert
Glad to see that our 'Blueprint' is generating some debate. It may be worth clarifying where this is coming from and what it is trying to do..
First, it is based on the experiences of 500 UK SMEs and our statistical analysis of the factors linked most strongly to above average growth performance. The six factors mentioned in the Blueprint pass the normal test for statistical robustness in terms of their link with growth and profitability. We have made no attempt at adding any value here really only tried to identify those strategies most commonly associated with business growth.
Second, our evidence suggests that any three of these six factors are sufficient to mean that a firm is likely to grow a third faster than firms which are not. Again not our invention but the evidence from our survey of UK firms. We recognise however that some elements of the Blueprint will clearly be more relevant to some firms than others.
Finally, what can firms do if they are interested in implementing the Blueprint. Well, we have a step by step guide and this can be downloaded from royalmail.com/blueprint.
We also have a more detailed research report which provides the basis for tbe Blueprint and I am happy to share this with anyone interested if they contact me at Warwick.
Glad to see that Warwick finally commented.
However I can't buy into much of this. The Royal Mail piece is shamefully patronising, bland and unhelpful and I am surprised that Warwick is proud to be associated with this.
The actual press release and the Prof's comments simply say when things correlate. This is not the same as cause and effect. Therefore the whole blueprint or recipe for success is misleading.
Andy
I suggest Prof Roper looks at
http://robert-craven.blogspot.com/2010/04/shortest-book-on-business.html - which is more like a proper blueprint IMHO
The problem I think is the flaw in the research that attributes two things happening at the same time as being connected.
Lesson 1 of any research is to understand the difference between cause-and-effect and correlations.
eg Whenever I have a massive hangover the sun always shines. This does not mean that my hangovers cause the sun to shine. Nor does it mean that the sun causes my hangovers. Nor does it mean I can only get a hangover if the sun is shining.
Colin
Warwick has a world class reputation, not cheap in today's global economy, competing with Harvard, LSE etc.
All six factors are commendable.
What I appreciate about Robert Craven is his down to earth, 'been there done that', tried and tested formulas and most of all clarity.
In your blog Robert, what might have been useful would have been a few one liners....in response...the sort of thing you'd open a day's consultancy with a client (who maybe had read a WBS report etc).
What SMEs need today are Profit Boosting Quick n Dirty Plans and help to carry that out.
Warwick BS seem to be producing the academic and theoretical benchmarks, when in essence they are practical.
I am not suggesting that Academics have nothing to teach practitioners.
This was the very basis and meaning of an MBA, was it not?
For much of my business life, I paid the heavy price of too much experience (mostly unenlightened and out-of-date) and too little best practice and business discipline (theory).
I see you, Robert as a (typically) 'English Drucker'....getting business owners to ask themselves important questions, not too dissimilar to Drucker's 5 Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About York Organisation:
http://www.businessconsultantnow.com/5-answers-to-5-questions-every-organisation-needs-to-know/
Impressive response of commentors....
Facebook-Privacy lessons?
The gap between what Craven is now doing and what Warwick have offered seems very wide.
See him talk and you will see the chasm.
Phil
I suggest Prof Roper looks at
http://robert-craven.blogspot.com/2010/04/shortest-book-on-business.html - which is more like a proper blueprint IMHO
Glad to see that Warwick finally commented.
However I can't buy into much of this. The Royal Mail piece is shamefully patronising, bland and unhelpful and I am surprised that Warwick is proud to be associated with this.
The actual press release and the Prof's comments simply say when things correlate. This is not the same as cause and effect. Therefore the whole blueprint or recipe for success is misleading.
Andy
Whoah!
A few points:
1) Everyone seems to be searching for a silver bullet, a nice magic formula - it probably doesn't exist but we do know what the good get right.
2) Just because good/successful people do something doesn't make them good/successful.
3) Just because good/successful people do something the failures don't also do doesn't necessarilly make them good/successful.
etc etc
There's plenty of philosophical stuff we can get into around the point/validity of such research.
I suspect that the intense reaction is about how the research has been presented as a universal antedote and blueprint for success with little apparently practical lessons for us entrepreneurial types. Ironically this could all just be marketing hype and spin that is winding us/you up.!
I do wish we had some feedback from WBS and I have asked them (and the prof concerned) to reply but as yet we have heard nothing.
Just because they are not walking around with Blackberries plugged into their ears does not make them bad or dishonourable.
Yes, I used to work at Warwick and do respect much of the work that has come out of the Business School.
And no, I am not defending them.
Regards
Robert
and:
"Big caveat number one is “Beware of the ‘Survivorship Bias’!” - we see the winners and learn from them, while forgetting the huge unseen cemetery of losers.
The second beware when people attribute their success to certain key factors or activities - performance (good and bad) is probably related far more to chance than skill, yet people rationalise their success and create a cause/effect explanation."
Jim
and no-one mentions money, cash, profit or sales!!!!
Being generous you can see that the project points at good and worthy ideals.
I think that the rather extreme response is a result of its flakey suggestions.
"Could do better" is the result.
Tripe.
That's not a blueprint, it's a three year old's etchasketch!
Alan
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