Monthly Archives: August 2005

Thinking Different: GM $5,000 Chinese Minivan

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Keith Bradsher, former NY Times Detroit bureau chief and author of the SUV craze critique: High and Mighty writes about the maverick executive behind GM’s successful $5,000 Chinese minivan. The executive, Philip F. Murtaugh, is of course, no longer with GM.

Their development was led by an American, Philip F. Murtaugh, a native of Ohio and a maverick executive who was willing to zig while the rest of G.M. was zagging. Mr. Murtaugh was able to create in China the kind of innovative environment that G.M. has struggled for decades to achieve in its American operations. But whether G.M. can duplicate elsewhere its achievements in China or even keep its pace here is unclear.

In what may be a telling sign of the corporate culture at G.M., Mr. Murtaugh’s success in China led not to promotion but to his departure from the company. G.M. declined to discuss personnel matters, but both it and Mr. Murtaugh said he resigned and was not dismissed.

A soft-spoken man in a company known for autocratic leaders, Mr. Murtaugh ran the China operations for more than nine years from his base in Shanghai, repeatedly making some of the best calls in the industry. Now he finds himself unemployed and living in a small community in rural Kentucky.

Bradsher’s tenure covering the auto industry was rather controversial. More on Bradsher.

WISTAX: Wisconsin Income Taxes are in the top 10 for Mid/High Income Filers

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Via WisPolitics:

n 2003, Wisconsin state income taxes paid by filers with incomes in the $35,000-$75,000 range were higher than in many other states. For single filers with incomes in this range, Wisconsin’s income taxes were among the top 10 nationally. For married, joint filers, Wisconsin ranked from 11th to 15th, depending on income. These are several of the findings in a detailed new study of income taxes nationwide published by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX).

Tommy Thompson: “Stick a RFID Chip in Your Body”

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RedNova News:

President Bush’s former health secretary Tommy Thompson is putting the final touches to a plan that could result in US citizens having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip inserted under their skin, The Business has learned.
The RFID capsules would be linked to a computerised database being created by the US Department of Health to store and manage the nation’s health records. It could be the precursor to a similar scheme in the UK.
The president’s budget for 2006 continues to support the use of health information technology by increasing funding to $125m for pilot schemes.
Thompson, now a director of Applied Digital Solutions, the company that makes the chips, intends to publish the proposal in the next 50 days, by which time he plans to have had a VeriChip inserted in his arm. Thompson believes the capsules could help save thousands of lives every year.

I’m glad Tommy is sticking it to himself first on this one. I can see some benefits to this approach, BUT there’s a huge privacy downside.

Chinese Basketball Team to Play Ryan Coached Team at the Fieldhouse

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WisPolitics:

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) China Council and the Milwaukee Bucks today announced that the professional Chinese Basketball Association’s Beijing Ducks will play a free exhibition game at the University of Wisconsin Field House during the team’s 12-day trip to Wisconsin. The Ducks will take on Madison-area college stars and aspiring professionals – coached by University of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan – at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 11.
The exhibition game is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.
“The Beijing Ducks’ visit to Wisconsin marks the first time a professional Chinese basketball team has come to the United States, and we are excited and honored that they will be using the University of Wisconsin’s facilities during their trip,” UW assistant coach Greg Gard said. “This should be a fun game for both the players and the spectators. We hope many people will come out and take advantage of this great opportunity to see top-level basketball at no cost.”

Land’s End President Out

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Mike Ivey:

The turmoil continues at Lands’ End with the firing of president and CEO Mindy Meads after just 18 months at the helm of the clothing retailer.
Meads had been promoted to Lands’ End CEO in February 2004.
Replacing Meads as interim president is David McCreight, executive vice president of merchandising for Lands’ End.

Green Bay’s Schneider National: HBR on their Operational Innovation

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Great example of a traditional company that continues to improve. I remember using Schneider years ago, on the west coast and being astonished at their unique GPS shipment tracking system. This was in the late 1980’s…. Michael Hammer takes a look:

That’s the bad news. The good news is that Schneider’s leaders did not give up, but restarted the effort in a different way. This time around the company was astoundingly successful. The time to respond to a customer’s RFP, which had been in the range of 30–45 days, plummeted to 1–2 days. These results started to appear within nine months of the project getting underway and were fully realized in less than two years. By getting back to customers so much faster than its competitors, Schneider was able to shape the terms of competition. The result was a rise of some 70 percent in the percentage of bids that Schneider won, which translated into sales increases of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Ironically, many of the ideas that had been developed in the original project resurfaced in the new system for responding to RFPs.
So what changed between the first and second efforts that made the difference between failure and success? There were six key factors: