Sam Thornton

Rex might need a lessons in system thinking. Based on his current moves, I think he’s definitely in a do what you can now to win mode. I can see him taking slices of the team to get an idea of the whole and being fairly happy with it. He’s got a stud RB, now. He inherited a really good defensive unit. Just picked a serviceable veteran…[Read more]

Good question. I think for us, it really is a blend of the two because it is in fact a two-part proposition. For instance, we can push personal customer service and relationships, but so can pretty much everyone else in our county. So that alone doesn’t differentiate us. Truth be told, because we are the second largest firm in the county, the…[Read more]

Well, you guys grabbed my systems think example – Alex specifically. I read an article on Grantland this morning about the McCoy-Alonso trade that I was thinking of the whole time I was reading the systems stuff. Bill Barnwell broke down the trade from all different angles of thinking on it, taking partial views, holistic views, different…[Read more]

This scenario reminded me of the HR Strategies course a lot, too. Having just come out of that, I believe that’s the approach to take.

Value Proposition:
I work at a law firm and our value proposition is an important one. We are not a big Philadelphia firm, but we are far from a boutique firm. What we look to provide our clients is a balance between the two worlds. We offer the personal level of service of a small partnership with the expertise, resources, and experience of a…[Read more]

Just to play devil’s advocate here, do you think it may be possible that while they may have made a move in the right direction by instituting some kind of structure, they may have moved some steps backwards in implementing the specific structure they did? Yes, they may have a formalized process now, but with so many steps, inputs, and…[Read more]

One reason that critical projects may go unfunded is that the system allows for portfolio projects that combine several towards one goal. This can lead to the budget becoming bloated to cover all necessary costs and possibly a higher ranking for the portfolio. With an already tight budget, the allowance for combined projects will eat up larger…[Read more]

This is a prime opportunity for Matulovic to stand firm and justify the corporate strategy to his fellow executives. To allow special exemptions would undermine the process and keep them in the same state as they were in the ’90s. In answering these calls, Matulovic can explain what the thought process is behind the new system and why it’s…[Read more]

I like your point about the culture change. If that’s what VW is trying to accomplish, and I believe it is, then Matulovic needs to stand for in order to impact that change. He should also use the opportunity when asked to explain that’s why he is holding firm to the strategy. This would help his fellow executives obtain some clarity as to the…[Read more]

Like the rest of you so far, I do believe that VW’s new process is better than what it had before. I may be a little less optimistic about how much better, though. The primary way in which I believe it is better is that it is in fact a structured process where before it was much more haphazard. My problem with it, however, is that it is way too…[Read more]

Guys,
I had a credit card a few years back that I believe had this technology. You’d wave the card over a reader and that would do the job of the swipe. Is that what we’re talking about in regards to chip technology? If so, what happened to it? Is it just that retailers never implemented the readers into their POS systems? I’ve kept the…[Read more]

While I think there will always be a certain level of fraud that will be unavoidable, I do think that companies could be doing more to protect against it. The problem that I see is that this kind of thing is almost always nowhere near their wheelhouse, and they rely on outside contractors to provide protection. A company like Target can afford a…[Read more]

Looks like you ended up in a perfect scenario for the tried and true, “You’ll understand when you’re older,” Saqib. Funny how kids can keep things so simple and get them so right, huh?

I’d say something like this:

Yelp is a website that lets people say whether something somebody sells is good or bad so that others can make good decisions about what to buy based on what other people say. The problem, though, is that you don’t know if what the people are saying on the site is true or not for lots of reasons. The website tries…[Read more]

I very much question Sunnylake IT’s immediate response. It’s alarming that Jacob didn’t seem to do his due diligence in instituting back up and recovery systems from the start, and left the security the way it was until proven otherwise that it didn’t work. I would think that an IT professional worth his salt would constantly upgrade security to…[Read more]

Absolutely agree with you guys on this point. I’m stunned there’s no kind of disaster recovery or even emergency back up system that they could access, especially when patients’ health and lives are on the line. At my firm, we have made efforts to go paperless similar to Sunnylake. However, there are many forms of back up to make sure we always…[Read more]

Good points, Duke. I do the same when looking for hotels. I read the reviews to see if there is a general consensus about the particular hotel. I want to see that the reviews are consistently good, and that any complaints are minor or seem isolated. Sometimes a reviewer can sound unreasonable or overly sensitive as well. One thing that I do…[Read more]

I used Uber once while at a wedding in Pittsburgh last summer, and I was pretty impressed. I really liked the app and the simplicity of the whole process. I liked that the fare was fixed ahead of time so I didn’t have to worry about being taken the long way to my destination to rack up the bill. While on vacation in Boston a few years ago, we…[Read more]

You are spot on about trust. On its face, Airbnb sounded a lot like Craigslist when I first read about it. I pictured hostel-type rooms before seeing the exhibits. Accordingly, it seemed to me that this was a use at your own risk kind of service. I’m actually a little surprised that it was having such great success. My aunts ran a B&B in…[Read more]