Pursuit of Flaw – Part 1

First of all, apologies all around for the relative silence over the past few weeks. I realize that many on my own team, suppliers as well as customers look at this blog as an indication of what we are up to. Unfortunate side effect of that is that blog postings tend to remind people that I am alive which then launches an avalanche of emails and texts that interrupt some very important things we’ve been working on.

So to get us in shape for 2009 I’ve virtually faked my own death in a form of a “two week vacation” at the end of November. How some of you fell for it I’ll never understand, I worked on my honeymoon. The only sense in which that was a vacation was in the activity – I did not work on the operations of the company at all – but rather looking from the outside in making sure that we are on the right path, that the right problems get the priorities and that the right people get recognized for their talents and moved around to where their value is maximized.

That in itself is what makes companies great – and what makes management fun – constant change that helps serve more, better.

Changes in 2008

If you talk to any unsuccessful company – if they are even around anymore – the big note of 2008 seems to be the economy. This really is more of a sign of inexperience than anything else, I’ve lost the count of times that I’ve brought up the issues we currently face just to hear: “We will do what we always do, make slight adjustments in our approach as opportunities present themselves” – And how do you make a slight adjustment in direction when your line of credit gets cut in half and you managed your operations on the revolving line of credit? Bye-bye.

Then there is the flip side to this. Companies that prepared and aggressively pursued the strategy that is known to work have been in a state of perpetual growth pains. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how long it’s been since your last vacation) this is OWN – and many of our partners too. Every December brings the year to a slow close, allowing us to do massive maintenance, reorganize, check our performance, take breaks.

Not so much this year. In the first two weeks of December we’ve killed the revenue and profit #s for all of December of 2007. I’m willing to bet it is the same for our partners, the ability to reach a UK partner in December is nearly unheard of. The royal subjects tend to be the ones whose OOFs start at Thanksgiving letting us know that they’ll be out till January 10th. Not so much this year, everyone seems swamped and busy.

Going forward

The following are blog posts onto themselves but I’ll give you a brief summary of what is on my mind:

Strengthening alliances – in 2009 we’re set to extend our business alliances with MSPU, SecureMyCompany, ConnectWise, Autotask, Kaseya, LPI and SuperMicro. We are heading towards reducing the level of business we do with Microsoft, Dell, Cisco. People that were once competitors are now partners because the market demands it. People that are now suppliers are not going to be as significant because the demand isn’t there. I’m lazy, we respond to market demand (cash in hand) and not to the vapor of the supposed need..

Indirect service model – I’ve written extensively about our opportunities in the services business. At the present time, we are far too direct (be it in the support we extend to our partners, or our partners clients) and the future is in dumbing down the technology, not establishing technical barriers. Most of my current work is in reducing the overhead we have in answering the same @#%@#%#@% question over and over again.

Reducing distractions and interruptions – Gonna need some shields when this one comes out. As they say, it’s not personal, it’s just business.

Why break it if its working..

Because there is a long-term picture and then there is a short term strategy. What works right now is not going to work (well, at the same or higher profit margin) a year from now and if we’ve learned anything in 2008 it’s that the inability to change leads to the change for the worse.

We have a big December ahead of us, these last 3 weeks are going to be brutal. We will be using them to catch up, fix the outstanding problems that are still broken, cut the ties that are holding us back and celebrate a kickass 2008.