RadioShack’s President, COO Leaving

RadioShack loses it's third senior executive in the past seven months.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6363872.html

In a release today, Babrowski thanked all of her RadioShack
coworkers who have “made my time here so memorable. I am proud of the progress
we made together and will be cheering from the sidelines as they take RadioShack
to the next horizon,” she said.
Neither RadioShack nor Babrowski offered up
information with a reason for her departure or her plans for the future.

Babrowski's departure follows not only the loss of former President David Edmondson last February, but also CFO David Barnes, who stepped down on July 18th, the week after Babrowski was appointed President and COO.

http://marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=1946

I imagine that RadioShack's plunging net income wasn't a factor in the CFO and President's decisions to pursue other avenues of opportunity.

http://marketnews.ca/news_archive_detail.asp?nid=1604

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Luxury Kitchen Appliances are Taking Over

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6360092.html&

By Colleen Bohen -- TWICE, 8/7/2006
New York— The abundance of celebrity
chefs dotting the pop culture horizon, the proliferation of food-related
programming in the mass media, and the emergence of the kitchen as the “new
living room” have turned up the heat on premium cooking appliances.
Vendors have responded to the consumer clamor by rolling out more commercial-look “pro” lines and introducing a fresh crop of induction cooktops, perhaps the most
pervasive “new” product this year. The technology, popular in Europe, creates a
magnetic field to heat steel and iron-based pots and pans while keeping the
cooking surface cool. Dealers can expect induction models from a wide range of
manufacturers including Fagor, which has two entries featuring touch controls
that carry suggested retails of $2,500 (four burners) and $3,300 (five burners).

I've always been amazed at some people's desire to outfit home kitchens with professional (or at least professional looking) appliances. Certainly, kitchen gear are tools, and when you're going to create something, having good tools (and knowing how to use them) are critical. For some it seems like having a dream kitchen is a way of living out your personal fantasies of being Nigella or Giada, even if you hardly ever cook. On the other hand, you don't have to be brillant driver to own a Porsche 911, as long as you take pleasure from driving it.

I am excited about induction technology, and am currently polling some experts for their opinions on the subject to share here.

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Retailers Disappointed In HD Video’s Launch

Hardware woes, poor choices of content in the initial release of HD and Blu-ray movies for sale, and the boogeyman of a format war continue to vex what many hope will be the future of home video.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6362995.html

I especially like the phrase "It’s been a race to see who can string the
tightest noose." I wish I had said that.*


*no doubt anybody who knows me and is reading this is muttering "Oh, you will."

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Klipsch Acquires API

Now this is interesting:

http://www.marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=2042

During my involvement promoting (read:selling) API's Energy brand they were the largest Canadian and the third largest speaker builder globally. I wonder if this aquisition allows Klipsch to hopscotch JBL/Harman Group as the biggest speaker builder on earth now.

I imagine the 3 principals of API did quite well with this deal.

I'm waiting for a comment on this from my friend Andrew, who is the top Energy retail salesman in Canada for his thoughts and impressions on this.

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New Blu-ray Drive Can't Play Blu-ray Movies

In what has to be one of the boldest marketing moves in history, Sony's new BWU-100A Blu-ray drive for PC's isn't compatible with commercial movie media that is HDCP compliant.

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/14520.html

I imagine that consumers will be positively thronging to buy a disc drive that doesn't fully support its own format.

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Ricoh announces Blu-Ray/HD-DVD hybrid player

From CEPro.com:

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/14185.html

A couple of points:

First, This article comes as a bit of a shock considering that I've been told by sources from several different manufacturers that Sony has been playing serious hardball with Blu-ray, and is threatening to revoke your Blu-ray licence if you intend to create a universal player. Consequently, like many other bold press releases lately, I will believe it when I see it.

Secondly, RICOH!? Obviously, they're emboldened by rival office equipment/computer builder HP's semi-successful launch of their television business. I imagine that it's only a matter of time before Pitney-Bowes debuts a portable media player to go up against the iPod and the mysterious portable player Microsoft announced last week.

Okay, maybe not.

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Best Buy Bowing Private-Label Plasma, MP3 Players

From Twice.com:
http://www.twice.com/article/CA6351603.html&

And here's some commentary from my friend Dave Reid, whose twenty-five years of senior management experience at a major Canadian retail chain give him some authority on the subject:

I think that a key takeaway is that as a mass-market retailer that they are going downstream in price sensitivity to grow margins and unit volume with their in-house brand. The trouble is that unit price deflation relative to name brands will minimize the margin growth. It's a slippery slope since they'll be putting their offerings on the table beside nontraditional electronics retailers like Wal-Mart. This type of competition will eventually scratch the itch of lowball buyers and potentially backfire as price, at the cost of margin to remain competitive, will see any short term volume growth (next 3-5 yrs) erode as consumers will flee for deals. The engineered gains in margin fall away. Then comes the challenge of maintaining respectability as a retailer not a price player. I think 25% private label could be a harbinger of future struggle.

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BenQ Unveils Blu-Ray Recorder

From TWICE:
http://www.twice.com/article/CA6349199.html&

Something I haven't seen discussed anywhere, which has interesting implications, is that both HD-DVD and Bluray formats are being released with both playback hardware AND recordable media/recording hardware, at the same time. It was, what, about eighteen years between the launch of the CD and the release of the CD-R, and about four years before DVD-R hit the scene after DVD's launch? I can't decide if it's a matter of both camps being so confident of their media's adoption that they're putting all their eggs in one basket, OR they figure the best way to entice consumers is to let them have it with both barrels at once. In a very real sense, this goes against the grain of the most fundamental tradition in consumer electronics marketing; having the new and improved version in the pipeline, but holding it back, and carefully planning out the stages of your release schedule.

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An open letter to Jerry Zucker from a Canadian Consumer.

As someone who has not only shopped at the HBC family of stores for my entire life, but who once worked for HBC for a few years, I applaud Jerry Zucker’s promise to breath new life into the company, but it is my opinion that if Zucker and his team wish to reverse HBC’s fortunes, they have their work cut out for them.Every article in the business media that deals with the woes of Canada’s oldest retailer make the same points; a hypercompetitive retail marketplace, strong American competitors moving in, and HBC’s inability to differentiate their brand. However, I have never seen anyone draw the inference that most, if not all, of HBC’s struggles stem from an inertia-laden corporate culture that resents change, and a fundamental disconnect between the directives of the Head Office and the attitudes amongst the rank and file sales associates in the stores.During the years that I worked in two different Bay department stores, I observed that store-level culture and morale are dictated by a cadre of senior associates and sales managers, all of whom have been employed for a decade or more. When Head Office and store management call for the execution of a new marketing program, the prevailing attitude is almost universally one of cynicism and apathy. More than one senior associate confided to me that since they get paid the same regardless of how hard they work, they had no desire to deliver more than the bare minimum expected of them. Conversely, associates show a great deal of initiative when it comes to maximizing the use of their coffee breaks and sick days.I can’t imagine that this comes as a surprise to any Canadian who has tried to round up a sales associate in a Bay store on a busy Saturday. More often than not, when you do find someone to help you, they are neither helpful, nor well-informed. Regardless of the efforts of the buyers and merchandisers to create attractive displays full of hip, eye catching products, and the sophisticated logistics necessary to fill the stores with stock, I strongly suspect that the Bay’s lackluster sales metrics ultimately result from the lack of buy-in amongst senior associates (who I often refer to as “lifers”) who believe that their employment is an entitlement.Sadly, this culture is deeply ingrained at the store level. In any staff break room in the company, bitterness and complaining is a universal pastime that I can only imagine has reached a crescendo during the Maple Leaf Holdings buyout drama. In order to affect a turnaround of a Canadian retail icon, it is going to be necessary for Zucker’s team to address the deep-rooted disaffection of HBC’s personnel, no matter how drastic the solution may be.

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Who’s Afraid of Performance Management?

I’d like to draw your attention to the article “Fire your duds” by Jim McElgunn on the Canadian Business Magazine website: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/entrepreneur/human_resources/article.jsp?content=20050524_090427_3508

Mr. McElgunn’s article does a great job of laying out why it is so important to set expectations for your team, and making it clear that they need to live up to them. To back up a few steps from the termination procedures that he focuses on, where many organizations go wrong in the Performance Management process is that they fail to adequately execute the process itself.

“Performance Management” is an ominous sounding term that inevitably conjures up grim visions, whether of unpleasant disciplinary reviews, or of odious micro managing. In reality, having a clear policy and a recognized process for conducting performance management, and executing that process in a timely manner is a critical task for any managers who want to do more than just pretend that their organization is focused on success.

Step One: Have standards, and communicate them. Every person that reports to you needs to receive a written set of the company’s expectations regarding how they carry out their duties. If you or your human resources department don’t have or can’t find your organization’s Job Descriptions, then you need to get your act together. Don’t use the excuse that job descriptions are only for employees of large corporations either. I know several small independent entrepreneurs who utilize detailed job descriptions for their staff. Especially in a small operation, it is critical that every team member understands how their performance affects the entire business, and buys in to the understanding that each one of them is entirely responsible for contributing to a successful enterprise. For that matter, it doesn’t hurt if business units in a larger organization buy in to the same mindset.

Step Two: Schedule regular evaluations, and do them on time. This is where most organizations lose their way. Time commitments, deadlines, and scheduling make many managers downgrade the priority that they assign to performance evaluations. I have observed this pattern time and again: a New Performance Management Initiative is created. The managers, full of zeal, conduct regular evaluations of their people. Then they start to get busy with other priorities, and start putting off the evaluations. The devolution slides rapidly from monthly reviews to quarterly, then annually, then not at all. Some organizations even manage to leapfrog from monthly to not-at-all in a single bound, although this is usually symptomatic of other, more serious problems with the management team. Regular evaluations have two key functions: they allow you to paint a clear picture for yourself of what each member of your team is producing, and most importantly, it allows your people to have a clear idea of what you think of their work, and to provide them with coaching to help them work towards a higher level of performance.

Schedule evaluations according to whatever time frame makes sense, according to the tempo of your particular business or industry. Monthly evaluations are, in my opinion, a bare minimum. For some strongly sales-focused businesses such as car dealerships, bi-weekly might be better. For almost all industries, having regular monthly, quarterly, and annual evaluations works best. Only doing an “annual” or “year-end” evaluation is a shameless cop-out that is barely better than not doing them at all. It is impossible to give significance to a team member’s projects completed, projects delayed, deals made, and deals lost many months later. If it takes you a year to get around to handing out tummy rubs or rebukes, your people are likely to think that you don’t really know or care what they do all day. If that is the case, they’re probably right.

Step Three: Coaching, which is the whole point. This is the reason why you are making the time to sit down with a member of your team and conduct a formal evaluation. As a manager, you are (in theory) entirely responsible for the results produced by your team. It is your job not only to recognize good performance, but also to draw attention to areas that need improvement, and to provide constructive solutions that will bring those areas up to standard.

Everyone, regardless of how well they perform, has areas that are opportunities for improvement. Just as an under-performing employee needs to be shown the steps they need to take to deliver an acceptable performance, your superstars need to be coached on what they need to work on to go from “Good” to “Great” or from “Great” to “Exceptional.” From my experience as both a “top performer” and a manger of top performers, these individuals thrive on feedback and recognition. They enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from getting a great evaluation, but the most highly motivated of them will also actively seek coaching tips that will help them get to the next level. This is why it is so important for managers to break out of the mindset that Performance Management is solely a tool to move non-performers out the door. When applied regularly and correctly, evaluations help you coach everyone on your team to produce results at a higher level than they are doing now. And that is what you (and your boss) want, right?

At this point, you need to set targets, and set timelines. Now that you have clearly explained to your team member how their performance rates, and what you want to see them change, you need to set a timetable for when you want to see demonstrable examples of the development opportunities that you have discussed. Not only does this begin to provide you with the documentation that you will require when the time comes to dismiss a non-performer, it creates a sense of urgency for the team member who wants to deliver a higher caliber performance, and this in turn helps instill in them a commitment to change. Except for the most severe cases, you should refrain from phrasing this portion of the evaluation in Doom & Gloom: expressions like the venerable “your performance will be reviewed in 30 days. If in that time an appreciable improvement is not noted, further action will be initiated” are better off saved for progressive discipline letters. Rather, you should express the need for improvement in terms that build consensus. If someone is under-performing, the evaluation is your opportunity to make sure there is no misunderstanding between the two of you about how they measure up, and what they need to deliver by the time their next evaluation comes around.

There you have it, in three steps. Actually, there is a fourth step: Do it again. Just as you can’t embark on a long road trip without a map and a clear idea of where you want to go, you can’t expect to execute a business plan without knowing where your performance is now, where you want your performance to be at the end of a set time, and what steps you will need to take to achieve that objective. And if you don’t have a clear picture of what that objective and the required steps are, then you can hardly expect your people to figure it out all on their own. That’s your job, and if you want to be good at it (and get compensated as well as you think you should be), then you need to exhibit the leadership necessary to deliver the performance that is expected of you and your team.

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