Morettini on Management

General Management and Marketing Advice for Software and Tech Companies

Tag: management

Does Your Company Have a Winning Culture?

I’ve been reading Bill and Dave (subtitled: How Hewlett and Packard built the World’s Greatest Company) by Michael Malone. He’s a great writer, and it’s an important business story; I heartily recommend it.

Being an ex-HPer, I have tremendous respect, bordering on reverence for the “HP Way”, which was the basis for the culture at Hewlett Packard for so many years. With the benefit of hindsight, it wasn’t perfect and there were definitely things I’d change. But you can’t argue with the results. Bill and Dave essentially founded Silicon Valley, and built an unbelievably successful company that grew like clockwork for nearly four decades. The HP Way is long gone and the company is nearly unrecognizable from the one I worked in. But to this day I don’t believe they’ve ever had a full year of negative profit results.

The term “Corporate Culture” has been defined many different ways by a lot of people, some of them so complex as to be unreadable. Here’s a definition that’s probably as good as most:

“The specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.”

Maybe you have a better definition, but this one’s probably adequate for our discussion here.

Anyway, Malone’s book got me to thinking about corporate cultures at tech companies and their effect on a company’s performance. It’s something that I think is really undervalued in too many of today’s corporations. It’s often dismissed as a squishy, “soft” issue that’s unimportant to analytical senior managers.

Regardless of my HP bias, there have been a lot of very successful companies that have been built with very different cultures relative to HP’s in its heyday. One notable contrast would be IBM, a peer and competitor which as an east coast-based company had a much more traditional, hierarchical, button-down culture. But the IBM culture was revered as well, and the company was also wildly successful for a long period of time. As the saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat (a very unfortunate idiom–who thought that one up?).

Cultures have been categorized many different ways including but not limited to “Work Hard, Play Hard Culture”, “Tough-Guy, Macho Culture”, “Process Culture”, “Bet-The-Company Culture”, and many more. In my mind, none of that matters much. What matters, in my opinion is does the culture drive positive results.

So you might surmise that the easiest way to define a great corporate culture is to look at financial results. That’s fine in the long run; with the benefit of hindsight, there probably is no better way to identify a great corporate culture than the decades of financial success such as HP and IBM enjoyed. But in the short run, financial results can be deceiving. It’s entirely possible to have a great short run of success even with a poisonous company culture.

So what’s the best way to measure whether you’ve built a great culture? The details vary at various successful software and hardware companies, but what are the common ingredients of a culture that sets the stage for long-term success? Here’s my shot at a list of the key attributes of winning corporate cultures:

Employees want to stay

For me, this may be the best gross indicator of a winning corporate culture. I know, you might say “That could means it’s a country club” with excellent compensation and low demands. But how often do you actually see that in a high performing company? Very seldom in my experience. In reality there is a great propensity for employees to take the view that “the grass is always greener”, and long to go somewhere else.

The best people rise to the top

This is another really key indicator of a company culture “clicking on all cylinders”. Particularly in larger organizations, political skills often are the dominant talent required to rise to the top of the org chart. There’s nothing wrong with this–it’s a skill set that’s very important to successfully influencing large, complex organizations and moving them in the right direction. The ability to connect with people and bring them to your position cannot be understated as a needed attribute of a corporate leader. But it’s important that these political skills are also paired with strong business savvy. The best leaders not only have the ability to “win the internal meeting”, but also the analytical and decision-making skills to drive the company to win in the marketplace. Sadly, all too often I’ve seen that those rising to the top are not exceptional in both these categories. A great corporate culture should facilitate the identification, retention and promotion of such well-rounded leaders.

Employees speak well of the company to outsiders

Everyone loves to bitch about their job and idiosyncrasies of where they work. But I find that in companies with the very best cultures, the word gets out about how great a place is to work, because great places to work are frankly, very rare. This means that you’ve created such a great environment that your employees brag about it to their friends and external colleagues, overcoming that very strong human propensity to view their jobs in a negative light.

Opinions flow freely without fear of retribution

This one probably isn’t a hard and fast rule. I’ve seen traditional hierarchical organizations that were very successful. In those instances, you tend to see opinions flow down from the top much more often than you see them flowing openly from below. But I believe in most successful “modern” corporation cultures, this is a pretty typical attribute.

Don’t have to overpay to attract talent

You might think of this one downstream result of positive vibe from the previous four categories. If you’ve created a fair, stimulating, challenging and comfortable work environment, you don’t have to work very hard to restock it with new employees. In many cases you won’t even have to look for them–they will find you. In companies with the very best cultures, outsiders practically beat down the door to get hired. That means your pay packages won’t need to “set the market”, they’ll just need to be “in the market” to attract great talent.

So that’s my list–what’s yours? What’s your view on which company has the finest corporate culture? Post a comment to expand the discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

No Comments by admin on January 15, 2012
filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Startup/Early Stage
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Extending Your Technology With Spinoff Products

Many software and hardware businesses, particularly smaller ones, are religiously focused on a specific vertical market. As well they should; focus is one of the most important attributes that can bring a business from startup to a strong growing business. This is often one of the key areas I concentrate on with many of my consulting clients. Many businesses just can’t turn down any sort of deal, no matter what the effect it has on their existing product development plans or other key corporate initiatives.

But there is another side to the focus issue. Many tech companies have developed excellent, mature technology bases at huge expense. If that basic technology has a horizontal appeal, it can be quite profitable to spend a modest amount of additional effort to bring that technology to other adjacent markets that the company is currently not serving.

Care needs to be taken, of course, to not spread your marketing efforts too thin. But if you’re smart about it your company can increase, sometimes dramatically, the return on its product development investments. Let’s take a look at a few potential tactics, all of which I’ve used successfully both at companies I’ve run and with consulting clients:

Customize your products for adjacent markets

As an example, maybe you have an ERP software package aimed at retail markets. It might be quite easy to customize the product for other inventory-oriented businesses, such as distribution or service/repair businesses. By doing this you’ve created a potentially large new revenue source, at a fraction what building that product from scratch might cost. The trick in this instance is often marketing the product–read below for a couple of ideas on how to accomplish that without doubling your marketing budget.

Private Label/OEM products

Private labeling or OEMing your product to another vendor can be an excellent way to extend your product development ROI. It might be as simple as partnering with a non-competitive vendor who takes your existing product “as is” or with minor modifications, as well as changing the product identity and labeling. The target partner would be a company very strong in a market segment that you aren’t successful in, have no interest in directly marketing in, or simply is beyond your resource level. If done well, this is a win-win for both companies. Your company gets additional revenues with little to no additional costs (“pure profit”), while your partner gains additional revenue in it’s target market–without any product development investment.

Integration & bundling with other products

One of the best things a software vendor is to create a “developer’s version” of it’s product, which essentially consists of creating APIs (application programming interface) to the software. This allows easy integration with complementary software applications and even hardware. Back when I was CEO of a mapping software company with limited resources, we created a developer’s version which enabled both integration and bundling with a number of complementary applications, notably in the real estate and CRM segments. Once again, this tactic required only modest product development investment and enabled us to draw revenue from a number of different markets. We would never have had the resources to pursue these markets if we tried to build a new product from scratch as a company would traditionally do.

Different price points

Using my favorite mapping software company example, we were often forced to think creatively to wring out as much revenue as we could out from our existing technology. One of the other tactics we used was “de-feature” our existing $99 high-end consumer application to create a $9.95 version, which we then sold through mass market retailers of all kinds. Not only did this create more revenue, but the high volume business also created a bunch of opportunities to upgrade these entry level customers to our higher-end core product. This is a strategy I’ve used many times; you almost can’t go wrong when creating a larger customer base for your technology. I use the simplistic phrase “the more you sell, the more you sell” to illustrate the advantages of this approach.

Business vs. consumer version

At that very same mapping software company we used one other great approach to extending your technology: creating a B2B version of our consumer product which was aimed at road warriors such as sales and service professionals (the converse works just as well). The B2B version had a few additional features and we sold it via different channels and strategic partners. It didn’t have the unit volume of the consumer version, but the margins were much higher.

So there are a few ideas on how to extend the use of your IP to increase your overall ROI. What are your ideas on creatively utilizing existing assets to create additional growth? Please post a comment with your own thoughts so we can all benefit.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

1 Comment by admin on December 5, 2011
filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Distribution Channels, General Management, Product Marketing/Management, Software/Product Development, Startup/Early Stage, enterprise software, hardware
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What’s Up With HP?

As regular readers will know, I am a Hewlett Packard alumnus and a longtime admirer of the company. I worked at HP in the eighties, and with hindsight it was one of the finest periods of my career. It was a GREAT place to work, as documented by books and case studies written about the company. My time there definitely had a major effect in shaping my management philosophies.

The more recent -periods at HP have seen a lot of change and a fair amount of turmoil not typical in the company’s first 60 years or so.

Let’s analyze some of the recent events and assess the overall strategic situation:

Firing of Leo Apotheker

What a disaster this was. To hire a new CEO with a major change in strategic direction in mind, then let him go in less than a year is not good. What isn’t known is was the new strategy totally conceived by Mr. Apotheker, or was he brought in to support a new strategy favored by the HP board. Either way, it’s an awful mess for such a major company, and the HP board has not distinguished itself in the last decade.

The new strategy itself while risky on the surface wasn’t the real problem, imo. The communication of the new direction was the real disaster, and smacked of incompetence. Don’t announce you’re “going to sell the business”–that does nothing for valuations. If you’re going to sell it, get on with it and sell it without premature public announcements. By most accounts Mr. Apotheker’s short reign was punctuated by missteps, retractions, chronically missing financial targets and general bumbling. My sources inside the company say that he had lost just about everyone’s confidence, from employees to shareholders to the board. It’s hard to say if that’s fair; new managers can be sabotaged by entrenched forces against change. And major changes were on the way. But the buck needs to stop with the CEO, and it certainly did in this case.

Planned Sale of the PC business

To be honest, I go back and forward on this one. Back in my HP days the PC business was a money-losing, also-ran business with tiny margins. The corporate line of thinking at the time was that HP HAD to be in the PC business, it was so central to everything else the company wanted to do, and the computing world revolved around PCs. I never bought it. In fact, the PC folks got in the way of many things we wanted to accomplish in the peripherals segment of the business, specifically connecting to and partnering with all the other PC makers.

The PC business remains a low margin one today, but one that HP has established a leading position in. I haven’t studied the balance sheet, but I doubt the PC business is so capital-intensive that it would prevent HP from having the money to adequately invest in a new direction. I don’t think selling it off is a stupid move, but announcing it as a first step seems extreme, and only served to make everyone involved nervous about what the future holds.

Eliminating the Tablets/WebOS

Another PR disaster and one that was totally avoidable. The problem was in buying Palm in the first place, and paying a billion dollars for a company that had almost completely failed in the marketplace. Then introducing a new line of tablet computers to great fanfare, almost immediately obsoleting them, and then announcing you’ll be making a few more because everyone love the fire-sale obsolescence pricing–it appeared that the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

By most accounts the WebOS is a nice piece of software. The problem is that this move was so very late to the game. If it had been done a few years earlier, it might have been a savvy deal, and allowed HP to make a major move into mobile devices with a differentiated product offering. But by the time of this acquisition, Palm was already discredited and Apple, Android and Blackberry had solidified the top leadership positions. And the price was completely ridiculous for as failed company. You can put this one on Mark Hurd, as it came on his watch.

Buying Autonomy

HP recently announced completion of the Autonomy acquisition, paying a dear price for this enterprise software company. Autonomy is a good acquisition if you’re intent on growing software as a share of revenue; the only issue is the price. It was very high, but one must remember that HP’s overall revenues are north of $125 BILLION. Autonomy adds less than $1B in revenue, which is a drop in the bucket relative to HP’s size. With a purchase price of over $10B, HP paid more than 11X revenues–pretty pricey even by today’s inflated SaaS valuations. Autonomy will have to be an exceptional growth in engine for this to pay off. Only time will tell.

Copying the IBM playbook

The IBM playbook was to sell off low margin, lower growth hardware business such as PCs (IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo, a shocking move at the time). Then focus on increasing software and services revenues relentlessly, for a long period of time. It’s worked extremely well for IBM, although I remember there were some tough times in the beginning. Would it work as well for HP, who appears interested in copying IBM’s strategy? I’m not a big fan of copying other company’s strategies, although on the surface the two companies are similar. The key to success or failure is usually execution in most cases of corporate strategy. Executing this strategy would also take a very long time to have an impact on HP’s financials. HP’s software share of total corporate revenue was less than 3% in 2010.  There are only so many $1B+ software companies out there. Most software acquisitions on their own will have a minimum effect on HP’s overall revenues, unless they went after one of the few industry giants–which would truly shock me.  HP has become strong in services after it’s acquisition of EDS in 2008, but is still much less prominent in services than IBM. So even with an aggressive acquisition program and strong organic growth, HP looks to be a hardware-dominated company for a long time in the future.

Meg Whitman appointed CEO

It’s hard to say what influence this will have on the corporate strategy. Ms. Whitman is a seasoned CEO who has been involved in great success, although one could argue that she was very fortunate to benefit from a snowball rolling downhill with Ebay. In addition, her background is heavily consumer products with almost nothing in the enterprise space, which is HP’s supposed new direction. HP’s business is only 25% consumer products, and if you eliminate the massive PC business, it becomes a whole lot less. I never underestimate smart people or their ability to adapt, and she definitely fits in the smart category. But experienced business people also tend to fall back on the comfort level of their past experience and what they understand best. It will be very interesting to watch as Ms. Whitman’s tenure evolves, especially how she affects the previously announced strategy.

What happens next?

I think that HP ends up keeping the PC business, while at least in the short term attempting to become more software and services intensive. You’ll see more software and services acquisitions. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the flight away from consumer-oriented businesses to abate as long as Meg Whitman is CEO.

I also think that the original IBM-style strategy will be difficult–but not impossible–for HP to implement. For this approach to work, shareholders, employees and the board will all need to be very patient and supportive of the plan. Meg Whitman will really need to believe in it as well, and as discussed above, her background is far from a perfect fit for where they’re headed. My guess is that this strategy won’t be given enough rope for it to work and we’ll see another change of direction in the medium-term, but you never know. That’s what makes this kind of speculation so much fun!

What’s your take on the future direction of HP? Where are they headed, and does it end well or not?  I’m interested in your analysis of recent events at the company; post a comment to share your views and continue the discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

7 Comments by admin on October 17, 2011
filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, SaaS, enterprise software, hardware
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Strategic Implications of the Google-Motorola Mobility Deal

The big question is why is Google doing this? Media reports and analysis of the potential deal has been all over the map. Much speculation has centered on the real value being in the large Motorola patent portfolio, to help defend Android against lawsuits. There has been other commentary which points to the possibility of using the Motorola set top box business as an entrée for GoogleTV to finally penetrate the market. One pundit has even suggested that Google will eventually be giving away Motorola/Android handsets, in an effort to disrupt the marketplace and further drive mobile advertising revenue.

The only folks that really know are those inside Google, and they aren’t saying.

I’ve seen this called a “Bold” move–but it is Bold or a really bad idea? Let’s look the deal from several angles:

Deal Price

The price, $12.5B seems very rich to me for an also-ran commodity hardware maker, but I’ve of course not modeled it and done rigorous “what if” analysis like the quants at Google surely have. As mentioned above, a lot of the analysis of this deal has centered on Motorola’s 17,000 held and 7500 pending patents, supposedly to help defend Android against a recent spate of lawsuits. That’s a lot of patents, not doubt. But how many of them are actually relevant? A Motorola shareholder has recently filed suit on the basis of the deal being below fair value, so maybe my opinion on the deal price being rich is off base. Of course, anyone can file suit for anything.

Hardware vs. Software, Margins & Commoditization

This is the biggest issue to me. Google has a beautiful, high margin software business. In most cases, I am baffled when a successful software company wants to buy into or otherwise enter the hardware business, as I have written previously about Oracle. In addition to higher margins, software tends to commoditize much less quickly as well, as you can constantly tweak and go vertical with your applications to stay ahead of competitors. Motorola Mobility is in a high volume, hit-driven business which tends toward low margins pretty quickly. You can make money in this segment, but results tend to change quickly, and it really helps to be one of the big two or three market gorillas.

Android Licensees

Of all the negatives, this one baffles me the most. Google is positioning itself to compete with its customers–the Android licensees. I realize this is the age of “coopetiton” and all that. But from a strategic perspective, it’s far better NOT to compete with your customers and partners if you don’t have to. This strikes me as one of those times that it’s not really necessary. The Google pundits are spinning the story that Google can use all of those patents to defend the Android licensees against business-damaging lawsuits, so they’ve really done this FOR the licensees. Maybe this is true, but it sure smells like spin to me. I think that handset manufacturers will be much more careful about investing in Android-based systems going forward.

Apple vs. Microsoft

Google Android has been positioned as hardware-agnostic system software, which has allowed it to grow extremely fast and shoot past the Apple iPhone in volume. Think Microsoft Windows in PCs in the old days vs. the MacIntosh. Apple is the world’s darling now and Microsoft isn’t held in high regard like it used to be. Apple has always used a strategy of tightly coupling their software with only their own hardware. But Microsoft built a hugely profitable software business with 90% market share by following a software-only business model, centered on partnering with hardware vendors–and swamped Apple in the PC business. Of course, Apple has won big in some major categories recently with their favored approach. The final verdict for each of these two very divergent strategies isn’t yet clear in the smartphone segment.  How important is having the software and hardware under one umbrella in this particular market, versus the ability to propagate your technology more broadly with 3rd party hardware partners? We shall see.

Business Complexity

A software-only business is far simpler since you don’t have to deal with the complexities of hardware supply chains, obsolete equipment, and inventory forecasting. Because of this, it’s much easier to focus your resources on fewer key business drivers, and much easier to “turn the ship” when necessary. Google is getting to be a very large, complex business as it is. Adding hardware to the mix will only make it more complex, and harder to manage as a result.

What Does Google Really Do with Motorola Mobility?

I have seen a lot of speculation in this area, some of it ridiculous. As I stated earlier, One VC speculated that he expects Google to eventually give away free handsets to somehow drive advertising revenue. Although on the surface this seems to fit with the Google business model, it’s one of the silliest things I’ve heard, and a great way to lose money.  Google announced that they will run the acquisition as a separate subsidiary, implying somewhat of an arms length relationship. Like we bought it, but we’re really not going to pay that much attention to what they’re doing, let alone influence how the company is run. Right — I’ve got some really attractive swampland you might want to buy if you believe that one. They just paid $12.5B–fair price or not–it’s not exactly chump-change. I think they have some plans and will be actively involved. But what are those plans? That’s being held close to the vest–it will be interesting to see what unfolds.

There are a lot of different ways to look at this deal. So many angles to view it, and a lot of information about Google’s true intentions aren’t available to us. But remember, most acquisitions fail. My own feeling is that if the Motorola patents aren’t worth $12.5B, Google will regret this deal. And unintended market fallout could make them regret it even if the patents are that valuable. It would not surprise me to see Google jettison the hardware business in a couple of years.  I want to hear how you analyze this move, so post a comment to share your views on this deal and continue the discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

2 Comments by admin on September 5, 2011
filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, Software/Product Development, hardware
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Social Media Marketing for B2B Tech Companies

By now, every company has grasped the importance of having a social media presence on the web. Or have they?

In discussions with potential clients and others I am actually amazed how many folks have done little or nothing in the area of social media marketing.

Why do you think this is? Some business executives immediately associate “social media” solely with consumer-oriented activities on social medial sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. You know the stereotypes that are popularly characterized by the mainstream media: pictures of wild high school parties, viral invitations to flash mobs, and inane posts about what people are having for breakfast.

But there is serious business going on in the Social Media world. The fact is that Social Media marketing has definitely become not just a mainstream activity, but a critical one. No longer are at an advantage if you are heavily using social media in your marketing mix; you are falling behind if you aren’t!

Social Media is obviously very important in B2C software and hardware marketing. Because it is less well understood, I will be focusing on B2B marketing in this article.

Blogs

A Blog is the single most important step into Social Media for a B2B tech marketer. In addition to being a great way to bring traffic directly to your site, it provides the content to use as bait for all of your other social media activities. There are almost too many benefits to list here, but let’s try a few:

  • New and high quality website content which increases SEO (search engines LOVE fresh, high quality content. This assumes a self-hosted Blog–it’s critical for your Blog to be hosted on your domain to maximize SEO benefits)
  • Direct traffic to your website
  • Fast & Easy search engine crawling and indexing due to the large number of Blog ping services, Blog indexes and Blog search engines
  • High quality backlinks from the Blog services mentioned above, as well as from happy readers who link to your Blog
  • Content you can repurpose in a number of ways such as publishing in newsletters and posting on appropriate social media sites
  • Positions your company and key employees as “thought leaders” in your category

This is just a taste of what a Blog can do for you; the uses and benefits are limited mostly by your imagination. It’s a bit of work, no doubt, but has a high return if you dedicate reasonable resources to the effort.

Linkedin

After creating your Blog, this is the second most important social media activity for a Business-to-Business technology marketer. Key employees should create a complete profile (for professional development purposes, if no other reason) and a profile for the company should also be created. But that’s just where the fun starts. Here are some additional important activities to consider:

Join and Use Groups: Other than setting up a complete and effective profile for both you and your company, the most important thing you can do is join groups. You’re allowed up to 50, and if you choose the groups well they can be a very effective segment of your online marketing efforts. Become known and respected by participating in discussions. But most importantly, post links to your Blog content, press releases, newsletters, webinars, etc. If you’ve targeted the right groups, this will create a good deal of qualified traffic to your website and other online vehicles.

Build your Network: This is the place where you want to go fast, but don’t hurry. The more people in your business segment you know, the easier it will be to market your product over a long period of time. The key is to take a long term perspective. You don’t build a network by being pushy or “all about you”. It’s like any other form of networking. Reach out not only to connect, but to actually assist those in your network. In the long run, you’ll have a stronger position and it will benefit your business.

Search for Prospects: People are listed on Linkedin that you wouldn’t find elsewhere. It’s a great place to search for both companies and high level executives that you’d like to connect with. Be very careful in your targeting efforts and try not to be too obviously sale-sy. But if you are respectful and careful, an excellent source of targeted prospects awaits you, that you can contact directly (with a premium account) or connect with through your mutual contacts.

Ask and Answer Questions: This Linkedin feature provides a great, low key way to both show off and improve your knowledge. By answering questions posted by others you can demonstrate your knowledge in a forum without having to appear to be bragging. Don’t be afraid to ask questions either; there are a great many resources out there to fill in the blanks in your current knowledge base.

Twitter

This is a great place to connect with like-minded people. As profiled time and again in the mass media, it’s also a great place to waste time. So unless you find that you can become a productive and efficient Twitter networker, make sure you don’t become addicted to tweeting. Some people love it, some hate it–what’s important is to leverage it optimally for your business. I personally don’t waste a lot of time on Twitter, but there are some folks who have dedicated a lot of time–to great effect for their business. Especially if you have more time than money for marketing, there’s a lot you can do to gain exposure and goodwill for your business here. At a minimum you should post your Blog content, press releases and other important external communications. You should also think about assigning members of key departments (PR, customer service, tech support) to Twitter, giving your users and potential customers an easy, informal way to interact with appropriate parts of your company

YouTube

Yes, Youtube! Everyone loves to go to YouTube to view that video of the 6 month old baby surfing in the bathtub while smoking a cigar (Ok, I made that up, but if you do a search you might just find it on YouTube). But it’s also a great place to post a short intro video about your product or service. You can even put up training videos to show the depth of your knowledge in a particular area, or the depth of your product or service offering. The videos are hosted on YouTube, but you link to them and feature them on your website. These videos will give you a leg up in search engine ranking as Google, et al love video content and provide it with preferential search result positions.

Facebook

Yes, use Facebook as well! Facebook is certainly not a core platform for business to business marketers. But 750 million users (and still growing like a radioactive weed) shouldn’t be ignored. So create a personal profile and company page and post your Blog content and other external communications pieces there. If nothing else, you’ll get some quality backlinks to help your SEO efforts with very little effort. Don’t waste time here, but it makes no sense to completely ignore this platform, either.

Coming Soon — Google +?

This is a real wild card that could have a big impact on the Social Media Marketing landscape. As I write this article it’s too early to tell what Google+’s ultimate impact with be on B2B social media marketing. Most people don’t yet have access. I haven’t used it yet, so I only know what I’ve read. It’s still in pre-release phase (although it seems that most things at Google are!), and the features are still being developed. But so far it appears to be off to a very promising start, with 25M users in only a few weeks of controlled beta release. Reviewers have raved about the elegance of the “Circles” feature, which allegedly makes it very easy to segregate those connected to you into logical groups, a real problem on Facebook. Of course, Google is aimed far past B2B social media with Google Plus, taking aim squarely at Facebook as a mass-market social media network. But I think this new platform also has particularly strong potential for the B2B crowd, with possible integration with tools like Google Adwords, Analytics, Apps, Docs, etc. We’ll have to wait and see where this goes, and I’ll be watching closely.

There’s certainly much more that can be written on this topic. This was just a quick look at what I think about the importance of social media marketing for B2B Software & Tech companies. For example, there are new vertical social media networks popping up every day–there may be one perfectly aligned with your market.  This is a varied and rapidly evolving topic–what are your questions or opinions? If you need help with your marketing mix or other aspects of managing your software or hardware company, please contact me at your convenience. In the meantime, post a comment to share your views on this topic and continue the discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

2 Comments by admin on August 14, 2011
filed in Business Development, Marcom, Online Marketing, Product Marketing/Management, Promotion, Social media
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Should Microsoft Break Up?

Once again there have been discussions in the press about breaking up Microsoft. Years ago it was the government pressing the issue because of Microsoft’s perceived monopolistic hold on a number of software markets. Now it’s being driven by shareholders, unhappy with the stock’s unimpressive performance over the last decade. MS management is not fond of the idea of being broken apart, as management’s tend to feel. Unless the CEO is a financial engineer by background, the management team generally has no interest in breaking up their kingdom. But is a breakup the best way to go in the long run for the company? Will MS shareholders be best served by such a strategy? Let’s go to some of the pros and cons.

Pro Breakup Arguments

A breakup could unlock value not reflected in the MS share price-

The share price has been roughly flat over the last eight years. This is for a company that still dominates many computer markets, and is enormously profitable. Something isn’t right. Some would say that some parts of this huge company are over shadowed by the dominant businesses, and therefore aren’t fully valued. Specifically, you could break out some fast growing businesses that might demand a higher multiple. Conversely some slow-growing, but large businesses which generate large amounts of cash flow could become great dividend payers, like the GM or AT&T of their golden years.

There are also some potential advantages not so obvious to financial engineers:

Smaller, less bureaucratic operating units

This is not to be underestimated in its power to unlock value and growth. Anyone who has ever worked in a large company, and then gone to a startup, can testify to what freedom from the corporate bureaucracy can bring. Everything happens faster, and innovation is unleashed. Thoughtful risk-taking is allowed, and hopefully encouraged. If you haven’t seen it, it’s hard to understand the huge change that can take place in employee attitudes and behavior when working is a more entrepreneurial environment.

Greater focus

Focus is one of the keys to most successful businesses, but is hard to quantify. When you are very large and feel the need to continue to grow, it’s easy to lose your way. Senior management has only so much bandwidth, and can have expertise in only so many areas. Once this bandwidth is exceeded or new business activity drifts into areas outside of core expertise, mistakes start to happen. When a business becomes too large and diverse the management almost always becomes sloppy, and sloppy wastes money and reduces profitability.

Greater ownership

If structured properly, folks usually feel greater ownership and work harder, knowing what they do might actually make a difference. Not to mention that they are more likely to be recognized and rewarded for their efforts which actually grow the business.

No Place to hide

This is true both for sub-par employees and poorly performing businesses. There are many places to hide in a bureaucracy. With large profits and so very many people, staff jobs abound without a clear need, and real jobs that need to be done are broken up into such small pieces that accountability for the bigger picture suffers. New business units can be run as money losers for years as pet projects of a senior executive. In a leaner, more focused organization, both these phenomenon tend to go away.

Con Breakup Arguments

Synergies

Many would say that you’d give up a lot of great synergies in any breakup. The Office business was built in large part on the shoulders of the Operating System business, as an example. And Microsoft has stayed very focused on software (with a few high profile exceptions like the X-Box), so many of the businesses do relate to each other in relevant ways.

Brand power

This may be the greatest argument, in my mind, against breaking up Microsoft. The power of the Microsoft brand is enormous; put the Microsoft name on any new software or computer-related product and, at a minimum, it becomes an immediate contender in it’s category. Many mediocre software products have become category leaders almost strictly due to the power of the Microsoft brand. In any breakup one of the companies would retain that brand, and the other progeny would certainly be large enough to establish strong brands quickly. But would it ever be the same?

Tradition

To some folks, it just wouldn’t feel right. This is Microsoft, after all. The alpha dogs of software. One of the great pioneers and dominant companies of American high tech. To some, it would be unthinkable to destroy such an American icon, like tearing down the Statue of Liberty.

This all comes down to preferences and judgment in the end. Some like scale and dominant brands like today’s Microsoft, others prefer the speed and flexibility that comes with smaller business units. Many believe that there is nothing like a dominant industry player to drive profits, while those with a contrary view would say that visibility of individual businesses and less bureaucracy lead to greater returns. In my opinion, every major corporation runs its course as a successful entity, eventually faltering under its own weight as it suffers the excesses of success. The trick is in knowing when this point comes–and it’s often not obvious, except in hindsight.

My view is that Microsoft has likely reached a point where a break up makes sense. You could segment MS into several still very strong separate compaies, which I believe would free them to focus on specific markets with much less bureaucratic drag. That’s my view–what’s yours?

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

No Comments by admin on November 29, 2010
filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, enterprise software
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Why is Intel Buying McAfee?

Intel’s $7.68B announced acquisition of McAfee raised more that a few eyebrows, both in the marketplace and on Wall Street. Does it make sense? It’s hard to say at this point. So much depends upon execution, as well as potential synergies seen by Intel’s management which may not be obvious to outsiders.

 The price is almost 4X McAfee’s most recent annual revenue. That’s very, very pricey in almost everyone’s view. I’ve read a number of columns by others which analyze this deal from various viewpoints.

 Let’s look at several potential rationales for this deal:

 Diversification into software and services

Intel can’t grow in PC semiconductors forever, and is very dependent on the semi business, which can be quite cyclical. Theoretically, attempting to grow by increasing software and services as a percentage of the business makes a lot of sense. But Intel hasn’t been very successful in the past in this very endeavor, which I’ll discuss more below.

 Technology synergies

Intel’s management has provided justification for this deal by talking about embedding security into its chips, as well as valuing highly McAfee’s embryonic security efforts in mobile devices and the cloud. I think these all have strategic merit–but are they worth anywhere near $7.68B?

 Cost synergies

While overlapping functions can lead to cost savings in many acquisitions, there are probably not a lot of costs to be taken out in this one. McAfee is a big company, in a different business than Intel’s core business. Sure, there may be some common functions like HR and finance that can be combined to some extent, but I don’t see cost savings to a material degree here.

 Use of cash flow

Intel generates a LOT of cash. They are one of the most successful tech companies of all times, and their PC processor business is nearly a monopoly, with terrific margins. So the cash is available, and it doesn’t make much sense to have it sitting in the bank earning 1%. THAT will kill your return on assets metric! It needs to be reinvested, or retuned to the shareholders…

 Growth

On the surface, buying a big software company could be a good growth strategy for Intel. Assuming as there is a good return on investment, then why not? It’s going to be hard for Intel to grow much farther in processors. About the only area big enough to make a big difference in their processor business is in mobile. This is a very competitive arena which they’ve failed miserably in to date.

 So that’s some of the reasons you might use to do a deal like this–but is that reality?

 The real reason deals like this happen

CASH: The biggest reason that this type of deal happens is because it can. In this particular case, tech companies like Intel want to be seen as growth companies. It seems to kill tech companies to pay their cash flow out in dividends. But once your company gets to a certain size, it’s hard to be a growth company. A lot of bad acquisitions happen in the process of trying to continue growth status past a reasonable point. But is this the best return on assets, or use of cash flow, for the stockholders?

 Why there is a good chance this acquisition won’t succeed

PRICE: Intel paid dearly for a very established security software player. They paid for the McAfee brand–but will they keep investing in it in the long run? History says that this business will eventually morph into “McAfee by Intel” and they “Intel Security Software”, if the business stays with Intel in the long run. Built into the price was also a large number of retail customers, a dealer and distribution network — but does Intel really want these things? If not, why pay for all of them?

 TECHNOLOGY: Listening to Intel, this seems to be a technology play–but McAfee is universally not considered to have the best technology in the space. They win to a great extent on brand and sheer market presence at this point–like many large companies. Since the price paid was very high–why not buy a smaller player with much better technology to integrate with silicon–for much less?

 CULTURAL FIT: Semiconductors and software are very different businesses. I’ve spent a lot of time in both. I have always said that the “Common Business Sense” that a management team falls back on when stressed, is a real problem when they are making decisions in an unfamiliar business. It doesn’t seem like brain surgery to manage a software business with a semi background, but there are subtle differences that tend to have massive consequences. Intel has bought a number of software businesses in the past–how many of them can you name? There is a reason for this, they tend to disappear in the large semiconductor bureaucracy and eventually wither away.

 Typical M&A ISSUES: Key McAfee personnel will have a tendency to “cash out” and leave after the acquisition. This is a normal issue in M&A, and when the acquirer is in a different space, this can be a particular problem. Possibly the fact that McAfee is already a large public company may reduce this issue. But if the real assets of a software company (the people) walk out the door, there isn’t much left for your $7.68B.

 In summary, I view this as a very questionable move by Intel. Intel has some very smart folks in management. Maybe they have some great strategic and tactical plans in mind, but if so, they’re keeping it all to themselves. For the stated reasons of embedding security in chips, mobile security and the cloud, they could have bought 2-3 innovative security software companies with bleeding edge technology–for a fraction of the price they’ll pay for McAfee. If this acquisition is to pay off, Intel will need to figure out how to leverage the McAfee brand, consumer franchise and distribution channels. I just don’t see this happening in the long run–I hope for Intel shareholders sake I’m wrong. Acquisitions are an area with room for a variety of opinions–what do you think?

 Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

5 Comments by admin on September 7, 2010
filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, enterprise software
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Starting and Growing a Software Company in a Difficult Fundraising Environment

Some would say that it’s ALWAYS a difficult time to raise funds for a startup company. In general, I’d agree. With the exception of a few brief moments, such as pre-Internet Bubble in the late 90’s where money was being thrown around like air, fundraising is hard. There are a few lucky folks that don’t sweat this startup task, like repeat entrepreneurs who hit it big the first time, or those with truly obvious ground-breaking IP. But for most it’s a grueling and soul-sucking necessity.

 Today fundraising for a startup company is tougher than every. The Venture Capital (VC) business is in disarray, with the number of active firms in the process of shrinking. The financial crisis and general economic malaise has made finding capital from nearly every source more difficult, from traditional banks to angel investors. So if you’re planning on starting a company today, it might be time to get creative.

 Most of the ideas presented here are applicable to any type of company. But for those smart about it, a software-based business is one that can be started and grown with minimal, or zero, outside capital. This has always been true in the software business, but a number of developments have made bootstrapping even a more realistic possibility today. You will need to accept upfront that it can be done, and structure everything you do with minimal financial resources in mind.

 Successfully bootstrapping is tough if you’re a first time entrepreneur, especially for those that have been working in large companies, with all the trapping that come with that. But embracing the proper attitude early on is essential if you’re going to have to bootstrap your company, at least in the beginning. Let’s examine some tactics that can increase the odds of startup success:

 Understand early-on the level of capital you’ll have available

This is crucial. Most get going on their business, moving ahead and worrying about funding once they have a business plan, prototype/beta, etc. Only then do they put together an investor pitch and think about how much money to raise. But it can be really helpful to have a realistic view as early as possible how much money will be available to you in the early days. No question this is hard to do and by definition the result will be inaccurate. In reality, a number of things will dictate how much money you’ll have available: Management team reputation and track record, investment contacts, dilution philosophy, local investment resources, business model, IP, etc. The key point here is to do your best to understand how much money you’ll realistically have available at startup and early on….

 Structure your business accordingly

….then design your business model to fit your prospective available funding. In reality, this rarely happens. Most design their business, and then try to raise money to fund it. As a result, for example, I see people start enterprise software companies, with complex products at high price points that demand a team of outside sales reps and field engineers with $150-250K comp plans. Most startups won’t be able to attract the funding to support this sales model. Or adopting a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach, without planning for the added operational expenses required with a SaaS model, essentially taking on the role your clients IT department. If you can match your business model to your expected capital resources from the beginning, your chances of success go way up.

 Start while you’re still working

One of the best things a startup entrepreneur can do is to start working on your business while you still have a job. This is especially true of the technically-skilled software company founder. Many software companies have been started by a sole programmer, writing the initial product on his or her laptop while sitting at home in the kitchen. It’s one of the beauties of the software business; you can create a product with very little capital investment. Of course, care needs to be taken that you don’t use any of your employer’s resources or do anything on company time. Make sure that you aren’t violating any of agreements signed with your employer. But once you stop working to start up a new venture there’s no telling when your personal income will start flowing again. So do as much as you can, before cutting the cord with your steady income.

 Do it yourself and don’t be wasteful

Entrepreneurs often find that they can actually do things they never dreamed they could. When dealing with scarce capital, it’s critical to make sure that you actually NEED to pay someone else to accomplish a particular task before parting with your cash. This will lead to personally doing a lot of mundane activities that you don’t really want to do. But it’s important to take those duties on early on to conserve cash. Also try not to waste money on ANYTHING, not just labor. Count those paperclips! The corollary to this is when you really do need outside help, DON’T SKIMP and just do an unacceptable job internally. Bad marketing is an example of this for the technically-oriented founder. This can be truly penny wise and pound foolish, and can cost you much more money in the long run than you save in the short term. Recognize what skills you just don’t have that are absolutely critical to the business, and save money elsewhere so you can afford outside assistance in those crucial areas.

 Don’t reinvent the wheel

I referred earlier to it being easier than ever to build a software company with minimal capital. Development tools have matured to make development quicker than ever. Many target platforms have much less memory constraints, reducing the time needed to produce code that is extremely memory-efficient. There are many pre-built modules for standard functions available for a modest cost. Ten years ago it might have taken a half million dollars to build a quality website that you now can replicate for a few thousand dollars. As a software startup, make sure that you scour all pre-existing resources for things that you can use, before you build them yourself.

 Outsource and off-shore, if appropriate

Another area responsible for much lower costs in starting a software business is the potential for outsourcing/offshoring. This isn’t for every company or every situation, but where it makes sense, it can both reduce your costs significantly and expand the availability of critical development resources. While everyone would prefer the developers under their own roof, in many cases there just isn’t the right talent where the company is located–or the budget to fully staff with full-time, onsite employees.

 Don’t ignore international markets

A big area which most software companies ignore initially for their products is international sales. It’s natural to want to focus on your domestic market first. But doing this exclusively can cost you some excellent growth opportunities, even from the very beginning. This is particularly true for US-based companies. The US is the toughest market in the world. It’s the biggest, and the bulk of the software industry is located there (all looking at the US market first….). As a result, the competition is almost always less in non-US markets. So there is low hanging fruit to be had, plus you can partner in many markets with distribution partners whom have existing market presence, and can take on much of the marketing investment required to gain traction. All of this can mean an excellent return on a modest investment. Once you’ve invested so much to create valuable product IP (which is very “perishable”, by the way), don’t limit your return on that investment by focusing on a narrow geography, if at all possible.

 Don’t give up and enjoy the journey

Don’t ever give up prematurely. The most important thing is to keep grinding until you start to gain traction. Starting up and growing a software company is an exciting–and difficult–endeavor. Above all, I believe you need to be able to enjoy the journey, in addition to having your eye on the end prize–success. There will be difficult times where you need the willpower and stubbornness to push through. Often startup success is found by staying alive long enough for good fortune to find you.

 That’s my advice on starting up a software company and growing it in relatively tough times. Post a comment if you have your own experiences to add.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

3 Comments by admin on August 8, 2010
filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Startup/Early Stage, enterprise software
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Is HP acquiring Palm a good idea?

To answer the question posed in the title, it definitely is if you’re Palm!

A long time player and sometime innovator in the mobile device marketplace, Palm was rapidly losing steam, market share and relevancy in the hyper-competitive Smartphone market. The company had staked its future on its new WebOS software platform and the recently release Pre SmartPhone.

 After a long period of decline due to an aging product line built on an obsolete software platform, the Palm Pre and its WebOS software was introduced to critical acclaim by industry reviewers and pundits. Had these introductions come a few years ago, they might have indeed turned around Palm’s fortunes.

 But competition in the SmartPhone marketplace has heated up to a white-hot level. After a promising early start, sales momentum of the new Pre products stalled, and this “last-stand” product introduction proved to be too little, too late. At nearly the first sign of Pre sales weakness top Palm executives began bailing out, while Telco partners quit promoting the product heavily, and it was also being dropped from the assortment of major retailers such as Radio Shack. The end was clearing in sight for this handheld industry pioneer.

In swoops HP to save what little shareholder equity was left. HP is on a roll, and in conjunction with their upward momentum they seem to be intent on acquiring everything available for sale, as well as competing in nearly every category of the technology business. This particular acquisition appears to me to be particularly high risk/high reward. It raises several key questions:

 Did HP pay too much?

Probably. The price HP is paying for Palm is about $1.2M, while most knowledgeable industry observers had placed the value below $500M. This is hard to understand for the casual observer, but you must remember that a company is worth what the highest bidder is willing to pay. Except for those on the inside of the deal-making, no one knows what the sizes of the competitive bids were. So it’s a bit pointless to speculate whether they paid more than they needed to. The better question is what is the intrinsic VALUE of Palm to a company like HP?

 A case can be made in this situation for bidding at a price that will prevent the transaction from dragging out. Software loses value quickly–especially in a fast-moving market like SmartPhones, and this is largely a software acquisition. Another big key to the valuation question is whether or not HP is able to hold together and retain the Palm team, especially the key developers. In most cases, buying a software business (which is the key asset of Palm) without the team is nearly worthless.

 Can HP compete in the SmartPhone business, and should they?

This is a huge question in my mind. Hewlett Packard is definitely becoming the 10,000 lb gorilla in the tech business. But even the biggest giants reach a limitation on resources, most importantly senior management bandwidth and market segment knowledge. IBM at one time looked much like HP today, competing actively in nearly every important technology market. Eventually IBM lost traction and did a painful restructuring focusing on services. Microsoft is huge and still dominant in software, but they’ve been far from successful everywhere they’ve invested. There are many examples in the tech business of competing in too many competitive markets at once. The often-used analogy (which still rings true) is to Hitler opening up a two front war by invading Russia. The old joke goes that had he been more focused, we might all be speaking German today. I am very skeptical of Hewlett Packard being able to win in all of the major markets they appear to be serious about at the moment.

 Can putting two losers together ever create a winner?

Not usually. I can’t think of a single high profile successful instance of this, although I’m sure it’s happened before. It usually doesn’t work in such a highly competitive market as SmartPhones, however. Palm was around 5% market share and fading fast.  HP is very successful overall, but its iPaq SmartPhone has less than .1% market share–I’ll bet most of you are shocked to hear that HP was even in the SmartPhone market prior to this deal! When there is a reason that both companies are unsuccessful, it’s very difficult to change the equation simply by combining. Mergers often create more problems then they solve, regardless of how good they look on paper.

 Having said all this, there is some synergy here. There is a belief is that one reason the Pre wasn’t gaining much traction was Palm’s precarious financial position. No one wants to carry around a phone that could soon become an orphan. The HP acquisition should help immensely on that front. Hewlett Packard certainly has the financial might, industry muscle and influence to improve the position of a well regarded platform like the Palm Pre and WebOS platform.

 Will HP be patient and persistent enough to win in SmartPhones?

To me this is the biggest question. If you asked me 10 years ago I would have said no. As a former HP employee, at one time this wouldn’t have been the type of market that I would expect Hewlett Packard to have success. But since them I’ve seen the company persevere for decades as an also ran in the low margin, down and dirty PC business, and finally push Dell out of the top spot. There was a time when Dell (and a few others) used to laugh at HP in the PC market–but that ended a while ago.

 I’m convinced that this ever more powerful version of HP can succeed in SmartPhones if they so choose. But as discussed above, even in a giant company like this, can they win so many tough fights across so many difficult market segments? That is a different question entirely–and something may have to give. They might not be able to win on all fronts.

 Bottom line

The bottom line for me is that HP can probably muscle their way into the SmartPhone market if they want to bad enough. But can they do it while they also compete with Cisco in networking, IBM in services, and Dell in PCs–just to name a few? Even for a successful industry giant like Hewlett Packard is today, I believe in the concept of “biting off more than you can chew”. That is the real risk. One thing I think for sure is that this won’t play out quickly. Only time will tell whether HP ultimately has the market knowledge, patience, tenacity and will to win in this hit-driven and brutally competitive market. What’s your take on this high profile acquisition? Post a comment to rev up a discussion.

 Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

3 Comments by admin on May 14, 2010
filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, Retail, hardware
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Effective Management During an Economic Crisis

This month we’re doing something a bit different–we have a guest post from Holly McCarthy. Please be aware that Ms. McCarthy is not affiliated with PJM Consulting, and the views expressed in this post are her own.

In the current economic climate, there is much that can still be done to turn business around. Certainly, technology has come a long way in helping businesses to maximize productivity with a minimum amount of manpower. While this is a great advantage over the economic crises of years past, the fact remains that effective management and leadership is still a key factor in maintaining the integrity of any business that wants to stick around after the dust has settled.

Leading by Example

Management will need to take the reins of companies and lead by example for the best results as the economy continues to waver in the coming months. Being able to roll up one’s sleeves and get down to business will show employees just what it takes to get the job done right. Unemployment is at its highest in nearly sixteen years, so many people may be in fear of losing their jobs. Showing that you are ready and willing to help out in the trenches will help boost morale and bring your team together in the process.

Ask for Input

Crowdsourcing is becoming increasingly more popular among businesses. While you may not wish to go outside the scope of your company for ideas, asking those who work for you for suggestions and ideas helps bring employees together and builds a stronger office culture in the process. Getting ideas from those within the company and giving credit where credit is due is a very effective way to turn things around and get your business back on track.

Trim the Fat

Unfortunately, there comes a time when a company must make the decision to let go of some employees. Take time to carefully evaluate your staff and find out where the weak links are. Some duties may need to be consolidated into other positions and this should be done within reason. The employees who are left will more than likely be happy to take on a few extra duties to secure their jobs. Although this is not the best possible solution, it may be the only way to help keep a business afloat.

Be Proactive

It is very important in these times to refrain from being reactionary. While things may continue to change from day to day, create a plan of action for keeping your doors open beyond the crisis. What changes can be made? Where can money be saved? Look at all of your options and leave no stone unturned; figuring out a way to stay afloat and ahead of the curve should be your number one objective until things turn back around.

This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of the job search. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com

1 Comment by admin on January 21, 2009
filed in Corporate Strategy, General Management, Operations
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