Last year we posted a TFI Friday Best of Blogs about what we had been reading that we suspected would interest and benefit TFI’s clients and network. Now, in time for your summer reading, we are updating the list. I invited our team to recommend books on the topics of supply chain, outsourcing, logistics, the tech industry, economics, environment / sustainability, or a combination of them – such as the book I am recommending this time.
A Taiwanese friend whom I met in Israel had me read Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet, by Tim Jackson. Jackson is Economics Commissioner on the Sustainable Development Commission, the UK Government’s independent adviser on sustainable development. He lays out rational reasons why economic growth a la the past century cannot – alone – guarantee prosperity, and how flourishing within limits is a sounder formula for prosperity to come. TFI clients experiencing rebound growth from the recent economic contraction will find insights on strategies for assuring success even when growth is not assured.
TFI Logistics Consultant Jon Gilbert dug into his bookshelf to recommend a logistics “cookbook” comprising well-written advice and “recipes” for managing outsourcing of logistics. Self published by Cliff Lynch, Logistics Outsourcing – A Management Guide, 2nd Edition is a good read and valuable tool that Jon uses frequently as he advises clients.
Kim Allen, TFI Environment Consultant, recommends Profit Beyond Measure, by H. Thomas Johnson and Anders Bröms. This gem of a book offers a simple but radical solution to operational waste that has been realized by two major manufacturers: Toyota and Scania (a Swedish truck maker). The waste reduction method elegantly eliminates the traditional structures that supposedly “manage” waste, such as complex forecasting techniques and theoretical models. Instead, intelligence is created throughout the entire system, and practical understanding by those “on the floor” is used to improve efficiency. This system mimics a natural ecosystem, and was the basis of Toyota’s market value rising above that of the “Big Three,” as well as Scania’s stability for more than 65 years.
We are lucky enough to have Ben Marshall as a summer intern; he is a mechanical engineering student at UCLA and is helping our clients with design-for-environment. The two books he recommends are Right Relationship, by Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver, and Just Good Business, by Kellie McElhaney. Right Relationship is, as he describes it, about helping our economy fit into the earth’s structure, as opposed to the other way around. Just Good Business is a guide to branding a company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.
TFI Environment Consultant Nikki Pava recommends Thriving Beyond Sustainability by Andres R. Edwards (who also wrote The Sustainability Revolution). Edwards describes how we can go beyond “sustainability” and attain “thrivability.” This book features examples of people and organizations that are creating positive transformations in all areas of sustainability. The frameworks outline areas such as regenerative design, community activism, and going “glocal,” which encapsulates the “think globally, act locally” world view. Thriving Beyond Sustainability provides inspiration and optimism that we all need today.
Finally, my colleague Pam Wiseman (TFI Operations and Supply Chain Consultant) shares that she is immersed in Theory U, about transformational leadership — creating the future and pushing beyond the constraints of the past. It’s especially pertinent in a complex and fast changing world with serious problems that need new and innovative solutions. Sustainability, climate change, terrorism, and our dependence on fossil fuels are a few examples of the complex and difficult problems that we face. Leaders need new ways of thinking and impetus to drive change. This framework can help drive transformative thinking.
Many thanks to the TFI team for their recommendations — I’ll load the books I haven’t yet read on my electronic reader before vacation. What are you reading that you believe will foster the TFI community’s success in business and in the world?
It’s not glamorous, but it’s necessary: ensuring that your electronics recycler is giving you maximum business benefit and a fail-safe shield against irresponsible end-of-life treatment. Some of our clients have switched recyclers in recent years — with the looming threats of regulations and NGOs looking to expose examples — and others are issuing requests for proposals now.
What should you look for in your recycler? Most of TFI’s community members have global customers, so having global coverage is advantageous not only for ease of doing business but also to reduce the ridiculous expense and amounts of carbon emissions from shipping end-of-life or second-life product across oceans for “environmental benefit.” Plus, regulations in the wings will require responsible recycling in the region of the product’s use.
Also, find out the exact path of your specific products from when they leave yours or your customers’ premises through the time when they become raw materials available for another supply chain. Choose only those recyclers that accurately document product outcome and be wary of too many subcontracting relationships; with more than 2 degrees of separation it’s nearly impossible to ensure that the people actually treating your products are doing so responsibly. The defense, “But it wasn’t the recycler I hired who sent the products to the Ghana,” won’t count when photos capture brand-name products in tragic “digital dumps” there (where customers’ data are at risk as well.)
Finally, create additional revenue streams by designing your products and processes for responsible additional “lives.” Find a recycler excellent at triage — determining which of your once-used products are appropriate for refurbishment and data cleansing, warranty replacements, resale, or mining for workable sub-modules or valuable components. (This recommendation is sure to spark replies from people uncomfortable with selling second-hand electronics, though it is a common practice around the world and it should be done with full disclosure.)
If you want hundreds of times more insights on choosing and auditing electronics recyclers than space allows in this blog, come to the International Electronics Recycling Conference and Expo in San Francisco May 26-27 (at which I am keynote speaker, and several TFI clients are presenting).
Conference Director Ismail Oyekan said it well: “A huge majority amongst businesses of all sizes do not realize the liability, environmental impacts, and financial costs associated with improper electronics waste management. Electronics waste is now the fastest growing waste stream and information-technology asset managers, manufacturers, and others in the electronics supply chain can learn about the process of selecting a qualified electronics recyclers for their end-of-life and surplus assets.”
OK, who wants to comment about electronics reuse?
by Kimberly Allen and Pamela J. Gordon
Many companies have begun working on environmental initiatives within their own four walls by increasing energy efficiency and reducing waste. It seems that everyone’s favorite these days is to remove single-use cups with forever-use ones. This internal focus is natural because it is where managers exert the most control, and it is where clear metrics can be established. (Let us know if you’d like to receive our new data supporting that ceramic cups are best for reducing costs and environmental impact.)
Going much deeper into the supply chain
But companies are interactive entities, part of a larger system. Sustainability managers quickly discover that fulfilling environmental objectives – especially in the areas of product design, distribution, or procurement – means working with suppliers and customers. A seemingly simple task such as reducing the packaging on a component can involve lengthy communications and negotiations with a surprising number of people both inside and outside the company. (We recently helped a client create an efficient packaging solution when the prior method used four times the packaging necessary!)
Sustainability in the supply chain is increasingly important because of regulations also. For instance, the REACH Directive requires companies to know (and register) the chemical contents of their products in far greater detail than ever before. They are reaching back into their supply chains for basic information, which can lead to collaborative product redesigns to avoid harmful chemicals.
Insights from the CDP
The folks at the Carbon Disclosure Project have been working to ease the transition to sustainable supply-chain operations by creating a network of member companies called the CDP Supply Chain. As stated in the flagship 2010 Supply Chain Report, “The CDP Supply Chain is a collaboration of global corporations who have extended their climate change and carbon management strategies beyond their direct corporate boundaries to engage with their suppliers via CDP’s annual Information Request. …This year, 44 member companies reached out to 1,402 of their suppliers, and 710 (51%) responded to the request.”
The report summarizes the findings. Members of the CDP Supply Chain are intent on reducing the carbon emissions from their supply chains, and are working on the challenges that currently hinder progress. Some challenges involve education of suppliers, who are generally at an earlier stage of sustainability planning than members; 56% intend to deselect suppliers who fail to meet carbon management criteria in the future. Some challenges will improve with clearer communication. Collaboration and sharing of best practices is a key priority at this time.
Although the CDP work involves manufacturing supply chains, there are other efforts afoot in the world of sustainable supply chains also. The first-ever Forest Footprint Disclosure report looked carefully at forest practices among companies in that industry. Ceres issued a report on corporate water-risk management based on disclosure data from 100 large companies. And other groups (ForestEthics, Earthworks, and OxFam America) are beginning to ask questions about “dirty resources” – raw materials like metals and minerals that are often acquired at considerable environmental and human expense.
Focus Questions for VP Operations & Supply Chain
TFI recommends that VP Operations / Supply Chain as well as Sustainability Executives ask themselves these five questions, toward creating supply-chain sustainability strategies:
o Where are the potential hot spots in our supply chain for illegal or unethical labor practices, or for irresponsible treatment of electronic waste (e-waste) and emissions to air, soil, or water?
o Which of my contract manufacturers (electronics manufacturing services (EMS) and original design manufacturers (ODM)) have made visible to us as much information about their suppliers’ labor and environmental practices as we need to reduce risk of being complicit in violations and bad publicity?
o Have we reduced the mass (weight, bill of materials, unnecessary components) of our products and packaging sufficiently for economic and environmental advantage, and which of our suppliers have been most proactive in this continuous Design-for-Environment (DfE) improvement?
o How are our internal supply-chain managers and buyers rewarded – through cost savings alone or also for reducing the company’s risk from associating ourselves with suppliers violating law or engaged in unethical labor and environmental practices?
o How many times do our products circle the globe from raw materials through product usage through end of life? Have we measured the wasted time, expense, CO2 emissions, and risk in transport, compared to a using a regional-manufacturing, logistics-efficient strategy?
How prepared are you to discuss these deeper levels of your supply chain? And what do you still need to understand in order to make it more sustainable?
By Pamela Wiseman, TFI Senior Operations / Supply Chain Consultant
Now that the economy is reportedly on the upswing, manufacturers are readying to boost production in anticipation of seeing business pick up. But operations executives are experiencing a chicken-and-egg situation concerning their fragile supply chains.
They ask, “How and when do we dip our toe in the water and expand capacity, labor, and inventory?” We know that whoever acts first may have an edge, but those acting too fast will suffer from anemic cash flow. And whoever acts last will miss the window and lose critical advantage. So, how does one “read the tea leaves” with confidence about an upswing in orders, and boost operations accordingly?
Crossed signals about when orders will pick up
Operations executives wonder, will the industry build and ship product “like we used to” or are today’s off-balance supply-and-demand conditions creating a lasting tug-of-war? It’s understandable why they are perplexed. Last week I read a difficult-to- believe study suggesting that 1 in 4 manufacturers felt no impact of the recession (I don’t know any of these manufacturers; do you?). The next article I read noted that unemployment rose in December in 43 USA states. I am an optimist, but even I am still compelled to be neutral at best about the pace of the recovery.
Lengthened lead times
One major risk lies with lengthening lead times. If no one is holding inventory, are we really working in an environment of cold starts–starting from scratch? Suppliers, OEMs, distributors…none is holding inventory that isn’t supported by a commitment, if they can help it. And what about the service parts on which customers depend — 24-hour turn-around promised with stocking levels based on past consumption? How do we walk this tightrope when consumption has been at an all-time low and could turn on a dime any minute now? I wrestle with these decisions every day.
Over the past year, sales-and-operations planning (S&OP) processes have been battered. What is a demand forecast anyway, when there is little certainty behind potential bookings figures? Pull systems, build-to-order, vendor-managed inventory – how do our lean-materials management systems work when no one will carry inventory and the demand is so uncertain? Ultimately, clients ask this key question: “Should we switch manufacturing strategies to buy-and-build-to-order instead of driving material to an S&OP build plan? If we buy-to-order to conserve our cash for actual customer orders, will our lead times grow and cause us to lose these same potential orders to a more aggressive or cash-rich competitor?”
The Best Counsel for Now
In my 20 years of operations management experience, I haven’t experienced such a “perfect storm” as we have now. But it actually creates a window of opportunity to gain insight enabling more certain decisions.
I see only one real answer: customers, OEMs and suppliers all need to work together as a united supply chain, sharing information to reduce risk more than ever to get through this transition period and prepare to take maximum advantage of an increase in business. And the “perfect storm” actually gives us greater opportunity than ever to gain inter-supply-chain-partner cooperation. We’ve found that right now in the business cycle, the best externally focused tool is plain and simple – increasing the level of direct communication with customers and suppliers and listening carefully for the clues.
We start internally — by helping our clients discern: Do they have significant numbers of customers and suppliers both on credit hold? Are they rationing cash? Is it possible that they, our client companies, may be on credit hold with some suppliers? And we immediately assemble a senior-executive-driven, cross-functional (comprising Sales, Operations (Manufacturing, Supply Chain), and Marketing) internal forum to drive S&OP process, balance risk, and make optimal choices right now. Then, talk more openly than ever with customers and suppliers, who themselves are needing insight just as much or more than your company does.
How is your company coping with supply-chain uncertainty? Would you be more willing than usual to engage in frank, cross-company discussions to strengthen supply-chain predictability?
Let’s face it: changing organizations can be hard work. People with better ideas for achieving results face not only personal resistance to change but also sometimes a sluggish organizational pace. In my experience, the most competitive strategy for improving processes is to leap-frog from the status quo to four-to-five levels beyond. Here are some examples — the first from an electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company and the second from a name-brand electronics company (OEM).
Celestica, in response to the Montreal Protocol phasing out ozone-depleting substances was the first electronics contract manufacturer to leap-frog from cleaning printed-circuit-board assemblies with CFC (ozone-depleting) solvents to the no-clean process. In doing so, Celestica leaped over the aqueous-cleaning technique requiring costly capital equipment, floor space and power for the equipment, labor hours, and disposal of heavy-metal water with permits and treatments. I interviewed the parties responsible for this change a few years afterward (for my book Lean and Green: Profit for Your Workplace and the Environment), and the smarts behind the leap-frog move were motivated by environmental conservation and competitive savings of time, cost, real estate, and more.
HP, anteing up for a package-reduction challenge by Walmart, did not do as most of its competitors did — incrementally or even substantively reducing the size and weight of the packaging surrounding the products. One HP employee had the idea to make the packaging part of the product itself. The notebook computers, cables, and accessories were packed in attractive over-the-shoulder “messenger” bags — three to a cardboard shipping box without any other packaging material. In one fell swoop, this leap-frog move resulted in 97% reduction of packaging, conservation of fuel, and reduction of CO2 emissions by removing the equivalent of one out of every four trucks previously needed to deliver the notebooks to Walmart and Sam’s Clubs around the USA.
I encourage you to take advantage of the New Year to use leap-frog thinking — in your companies’ manufacturing strategies, supply-chain and logistics designs, Lean programs, sustainability programs, and every other aspect of your workplaces. Make it easier for yourself! Raise up your company’s efficacy 4-5 steps at once instead of inching upward — facing organizational resistance to change each time. Leave the arduous step-by-step improvements to your competitors, who will arrive at the finish line much later and with far more cost.
Will you face more organizational resistance to this one leap-frog improvement than to a more routine change? Perhaps yes. But if you are like me, one of the reasons you get up in the morning and head to your desk is to make your organization and the world better places.
Do you want to try on some leap-frog ideas with the TFI and TFI Environment consultants and/or community (reply below)?
You’d think that for-profit corporations’ chief financial officers might be the last ones to endorse company-wide strategies for reducing environment impact. Wrong.
When the CFO at furnishings company Herman Miller became the CEO, the director of Environment, Health, and Safety Paul Murray felt nervous. Murray had convinced the CFO to allocate $40,000/month to invest in resource efficiencies for the company. When Brian Walker moved from CFO to CEO, he asked to meet with Murray. At that point, Murray feared that a CFO-turned-CEO would nix the investment altogether. To Murray’s surprise and relief, Walker suggested increasing the monthly investment to $50,000! Walker explained that while he was CFO he witnessed that the return on investment (ROI) from the environmental investments was simply excellent. In fact, Herman Miller ($2 billion in revenues) not only makes smart investments to reduce its own environmental footprint, but also the company is a design-for-environment leader for office chairs (I’m sitting on one) and other furnishings, and – through subsidiary Convia, Inc. — helps to reduce energy consumption of customers’ buildings with energy-management tools. CEO Walker says, “Sustainability is becoming as prevalent in customer requirements as quality was 10 or 15 years ago, and we’re at the tipping point of this movement where our customers, at least, are no longer saying it’s nice to know you do it. It’s a requirement” (Industry Week, Sep. 2009, p. 24). By the way, 20% of Walker’s compensation is based on the company’s environmental performance.
Last month, a CFO-turned-CEO at a TFI electronics-company client reviewed the High-ROI Environmental Roadmap we had prepared in concert with a multifunctional green team. The roadmap listed a half-dozen Lean and Green initiatives along with their financial and environmental benefits (cost reductions, new revenue, carbon emission reductions, and less use of paper, water, and energy). From reviewing both the environmental and financial ROI, the CEO’s response was immediate: he said he’s one-hundred percent behind one-hundred percent of the projects as outlined.
Another high-tech company CFO (not yet a CEO!) uses his sharp focus on ROI to support his company’s environmental program, with this advice: Determine priorities for the environmental initiatives according to greatest reduction of environment impact and the highest monetary ROI. For example, if you had $500,000 to spend, what projects would you choose to most efficiently maximize the environmental and monetary savings? “It’s important to prioritize in this way,” he said, “because the environmental program could be one of 50 initiatives all fighting with each other for resources. List the overhead, capital, and expense investments separately. Get on the executive agenda and carve out the initiative — just like any other business function.” The CFO added that environmental programs – like training – need to be elevated to the executive level for planned investments, because they span all company departments; the executive staff needs to dedicate funding to be appropriated to the departmental budgets in a way in which the funds cannot be “cannibalized.”
So, if you are running (or starting) your company’s strategic environmental initiatives, don’t tippy-toe around your CFO. Enlist him or her in sharpening the ROI and advocating in the executive suites for these surprisingly large-return programs.
All CFOs (and other financially-minded) readers are welcome to weigh in. (Leave a reply at the bottom of the blog.)
The surprised look on the faces of a couple long-time members of the Quarterly Forum prompted me to post this entry.
Last week’s InForum for the Electronics Industry — formerly known as the Quarterly Forum for Electronics Industry Outsourcing and Supply Chain, which TFI started in 1999 – was well attended and full of insights. When a couple of long-time members independently asked me, “What are you up to these days?”, I updated them on TFI’s numerous international manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics research and consulting engagements, as well as our TFI Environment consulting practice.
Their polite surprise owed to their mistaken assumption that when I passed the Quarterly Forum onto Kathleen Geraghty and Douglas Kent’s capable hands, I had also passed along TFI’s consulting and research (not true – TFI divested only the Forum program). Though thankfully that erroneous assumption is not too widely spread – as evidenced by TFI’s thriving consulting and research this year – I would like to share with our readers some examples of TFI’s current consulting and research projects on operations/supply chain and manufacturing relationships:
• Customer Retention for Business Growth program, in which we are interviewing our clients’ corporate customers in Asia, North America, and Europe/Middle East. (Our international scope was bolstered by my working abroad in the past year.)
• Reliability benchmarking for networking equipment.
• Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) training.
• Manufacturing-overhead benchmarking for outsourcing networking/telecom equipment companies. (Let us interview you for this important study, which provides a complimentary summary for all qualified respondents; email AFeith@TechForecasters.com to see if your company qualifies and to schedule your interview.)
• Executive coaching for CEOs of electronics contract manufacturing companies, spanning corporate strategy, marketing, customer identification, and operations.
• Identifying and quantifying innovative markets for components and materials used in the electronics and other industries.
I am delighted to have recently added Pam Wiseman to our consulting team; she was VP Operations at one of our electronics-instrumentation clients for many years, and is proving to be an excellent leader on many of our projects.
It could be the increasing attention received by TFI Environment — an organization within TFI leading teams at OEM, EMS, and supplier companies to increase profits through competitive sustainability programs — played a part in confusing some folks about “what I’m up to.” It’s true that I am immensely enjoying the High-ROI Environmental Partnership program with a growing number of clients, backed by a talented team of TFI Environment consultants and analysts. But catch me on any day and I’ll espouse equal enthusiasm about all the ways we are supporting our clients – with operations/supply chain strategies and with profitable sustainability programs.
So, what have you been up to lately?
by Kent Romanoff, TFI Leadership Effectiveness Consultant
If you frequent TFI’s Friday Best of Blogs, then you know that we recommend changes to profitably streamline tech companies’ product design, supply chain, product movement, and other operational functions. Our clients know that change is necessary, otherwise they would not have engaged us. But often they need help in overcoming their teams’ or managers’ resistance to change. Organizations have an unfortunate habit of acquiring blockages that impede progress and stymie performance.
Managers can regularly embark on search-and-destroy missions to root out barriers and obliterate them. These barriers can be difficult to find, because they morph into familiar forms and hide in plain sight. If you look carefully, you can uncover these barriers to change:
1. EXCUSES — When you start hearing excuses for why things can’t change, you have encountered a blockage.
2. FEAR — When people get scared, they freeze and plug up everything they are involved in.
3. SECRETS – This is a sure sign of a dysfunctional organization.
4. INSECURITY — When people are in over their head, they know it and their main purpose in life becomes trying to make sure other people don’t figure it out.
5. POSTURING — When people fixate on their image, you are in the presence of a blockage.
6. ROUTINES — Doing things the same way for too long creates “comfort zones,” which are places where fearful, insecure, posturing people go to avoid detection.
By contrast, positive change thrives in healthy organizations, characterized by:
1. Strong, enlightened, progressive, free-thinking, open-minded LEADERSHIP.
2. An appreciation of the value and importance of SETTING AND ACHIEVING GOALS.
3. An atmosphere of HIGH-ACHIEVEMENT, where good enough is not good enough.
4. FULL DISCLOSURE and a willingness to share virtually all information.
5. Employees who understand WHAT IS EXPECTED and WHAT THEY WILL GAIN when they achieve it.
6. A sense of TEAMWORK where everyone believes they are working for the benefit of all, not enriching the few.
7. The ability to EMBRACE CHANGE and LEARN FROM MISTAKES.
8. The capacity to GET THINGS DONE.
How many organizations truly possess all of these attributes? Precious few. The first step to positive change is creating the right conditions for improvements to exist. Life on earth didn’t emerge until there was an oxygen-rich atmosphere. The Renaissance couldn’t happen until dogma gave way to enlightened thought. And an organization plugged with barriers cannot strategically progress.
We at TFI have succeeded in having upper and middle management and all employees understand the imperative of positive change. How? We gain enthusiastic buy-in through addressing key leaders’ business and budgetary goals, inspire people through real-life examples of other companies’ success, show how it’s good for business, educate about the cost of wasted materials/processes, and tie compensation to results. We use a host of approaches depending on the company’s culture. It’s very rewarding.
How have you removed barriers to change in your company? (Please reply below.)
Several mid-sized tech companies have had us create business-travel-reduction programs, for significant Lean (money savings in the millions annually) and Green (carbon reduction in the hundreds or thousands metric tons annually) benefits. In every case, we’ve reduced travel — sometimes more than projected. Yet in the process of customizing travel-reduction programs we run across five myths that we must bust to give clients’ profitability and environmental benefit a full shake.
Myth #1: Employees will resent travel reduction. If because of business travel you have ever (1) missed your kid’s graduation or performance, (2) not registered for an evening course that requires steady attendance, or (3) felt reluctant to book vacation in a fabulous distant place because flying has worn you down, then you know to question this myth. We begin customizing a client’s travel-reduction program by interviewing frequent travelers; these interviews quickly reveal that most travelers would like to curb non-essential travel.
Myth #2: The Sales Department must be insulated from travel-reduction programs, to prevent sales erosion. We used to go along with this view: after all, no consultant wants a client to experience lower sales based on a cost-savings recommendation. But then the evidence starting flowing in, such as from Oracle’s Green Sales program, which has the sales force reduce travel via web-based demos and reduce the number of demos needed based on consultative insights. For example, instead of sending about 5 sales-related people to a customer’s site, they’ll send 1-2 and have the others participate by the web. And what was the affect on company performance? –Profits up and sales decline (owing to the economy) lower than anticipated. For effective travel reduction in the Sales function, conduct objective interviews with Sales as well as customers to uncover non-essential travel, and provide easy-to-use travel-avoidance tools.
Myth #3: Travel reduction is only about reducing airfare. Corporate expenditures on airline tickets can be only 40% to 60% of total business-travel expenses, which include steep costs for rental cars, ground transportation, parking, lodging, and meals. When you capture all travel-related costs and carbon emissions, the significant savings may surprise you.
Myth #4: Travel is a long-term strategy for integrating combined business units. Travel can help bring acquired-companies’ employees into the parent-company culture, but frequent travel is not necessary for the long term. Our research has shown that “internal meetings” is the business-travel category that travelers report they can reduce most readily — even at companies that have grown recently through acquisition. Company culture is driven in large part by the CEO, who — along with other top executives — can regularly address employees using video recordings, video-conferencing, web-conferencing, conference calls, employee newsletters, monthly “What’s on my mind” emails, and other inspiring travel alternatives. This sends a strong message that employees can likewise work productively with off-site employees without traveling each time.
Myth #5: We’ve already reduced business travel as much as we can. Owing to the economic climate many companies have recently reduced business travel. By analyzing why employees travel — through interviewing frequent travelers and requiring all travelers to specify how the trip contributes to corporate objectives — we discover process changes that render classes of business travel unnecessary.
It is undeniable that sometimes face-to-face meetings are best. Having lived and worked a year in EMEA and now back in the San Francisco Bay Area, I can attest to the value and enjoyment of having met with TFI’s EMEA clients in-person during the past year, and now reuniting with my Silicon Valley clients and colleagues. But by using a green lens to re-look at conventional business processes, we find new ideas for savings. And instead of finger-wagging employees (”Don’t spend so much money!”), we inspire them to improve the quality of our lives and the environment.
What travel purposes are sacrosanct at your organization, and should they be? (Please leave a reply below.)
This post’s title is borrowed from a chapter in Thomas L. Friedman’s book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. In the chapter, entitled “China for a Day (but Not for Two),” Friedman nearly wishes that the US Government would make as speedy and sweeping change as does China’s Central Government — that is when it’s for environmental and economic benefits. I thought of Friedman’s book chapter after a recent conversation with long-time China-based TFI Analyst Mark Natkin, who specializes in the telecom space in China and elsewhere in Asia.
This month Mark wrote in his newsletter the Marbridge Daily about China’s “Old-for-New” recycling program. In short, residents and organizations can trade in old consumer electronics and receive a 10% subsidy on the selling price of new consumer electronics. The program makes sense to me, and yet in China fashion the regulation is different from those in all other global regions. In fact “Old-for-New” is an even greater departure from the European Union’s WEEE Directive (reuse/recycling) than was China’s substance-labeling program from the EU’s RoHS Directive (substance restriction).
I asked Mark about China’s bold new law, and Mark said, “China is gradually working to improve the environment, both through recycling programs like the ‘Old for New’ program for consumer-electronics recycling, and also through use of more energy-efficient products, like “green” mobile-telephone base stations.”
Then he proceeded to give one person’s view of the impact of these laws, from the streets of Beijing: “We’ve had one of the most hospitable summers in my 7 years here – neither too hot nor humid and more blue skies than I ever thought possible for Beijing. I thought the clearer skies might be due, at least in part, to some improvements in environmental policy, such as replanting of forests between here and the Gobi Desert in the north, and even-odd license plate regulations. But the other day someone reminded me that one potentially major contributing factor is the economic downturn, which has seen a lot of factories reduce output (and the accompanying pollution).”
By the way, Friedman’s chapter “China for a Day” also reminded me of my 2004 visit to China (meeting executives at EMS and ODM companies in Shanghai and Suzhou), when with no apparent warning the Central Government banned filter-less cigarettes — without years-long deliberation by politicians in tobacco states or investments by the tobacco lobby. I found it both impressive and scary.
What do you think about China’s environmental policies and the way they are created?
Contact TFI | 2000 Santa Clara Avenue, Alameda, CA 94501 USA. Phone 1-510-601-9107
Copyright © 2009 Technology Forecasters, Inc., all rights reserved. | 
RSS Feed | Friday Best of Blogs
