Strategic tools for the practising manager

KIT

THIS WEEK: THE MEAT PROCESSING INDUSTRY IN INDIA

India has a livestock population of 470 million, which includes 205 million cattle and 90 million buffaloes.

India's livestock population is the largest in the world with 50 per cent of world's buffaloes and 20 per cent of cattle.

The total meat production in the country is currently estimated at 5 million tonnes annually.

Only about 1-2 per cent of the total meat is converted into value-added products and the rest is purchased raw and consumed at home. Most of the production of meat and meat products continues to be in the unorganised sector.

About 40 million people are engaged in the meat sector.

In the meat processing sector, India has 3,600 slaughter houses, nine modern abattoirs and 171 meat processing units licensed under the Meat Products Order.

Selections from management journals
NUGGETS

To build an organisation in which executives will flourish, the best leaders pay close attention to the design of the elements around them.

They articulate a lucid purpose, create effective leadership teams, prioritise their initiatives carefully, redesign organisational structures and, most importantly, integrate all these tactics into one coherent strategy.

But what sorts of leaders could be counted on to do the right thing? Creative, experimental risk takers; charismatic, domineering battlers; ruthless pursuers of performance; dedicated "servant leaders"; quiet stoics; or simply people whose "leadership secrets" have been collected? For all the sophistication of the experts, for all the books published on the subject, there is still no definitive consensus on the most effective style of leadership.

A blueprint for strategic leadership
By Steven Wheeler,
Walter McFarland and Art Kleiner
strategy+business,
Winter 2007
Read the article at www.strategy-business.com

When it comes to shopping, women are from Nordstrom's and men are from Sears. Women are happy to meander through sprawling clothing and accessory collections or detour through the shoe department.

For men, shopping is a mission. They are out to buy a targeted item and flee the store as quickly as possible, according to a new study by Wharton's Jay H Baker Retail Initiative and the Verde Group, a Toronto consulting firm. The study's findings have implications for retailers that are looking for ways to tailor their goods and services to specific segments of the shopping population.

'Men buy, women shop': The sexes have different priorities when walking down the aisles
Knowledge@Wharton
November 28 - December 11
Read the article at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/

Should innovation-minded managers look at the fast-growing Internet company as a model "" or an anomaly? For all its success, Google is still a young company, and it has yet to be tested by adversity.

We don't even know whether its approach to management and, in particular, its approach to innovation, is a cause of its success or a product of its success "" a crucial distinction. We don't know how well Google's example applies to other businesses. Google is certainly a different sort of company, but is it so different as to be anomalous? Is the company an exemplar or a freak?

The Google enigma
By Nicholas G Carr
strategy+business,
Winter 2007
Read the article at www.strategy-business.com

Not many companies are adept in acquiring sound market intelligence. A lot of them do it all wrong. Most gather intelligence focusing on a narrow slice of consumers.

A number of them limit their studies to transactions and other customer data already in their possession. Others don't study their customers closely enough, and miss opportunities right under their noses. How can companies get better information to make smarter decisions and increase their market share? How can they raise their market IQs?

Raising your market IQ
By Calvin P Duncan, Constance M O'Hare, and John M Matthews
Business Insight, MIT Sloan Management Review
November 30, 2007
Read the article at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/