Category: business advice

The power of delegation

Why organisations need to learn Steve Jobs’ lessons

Randall Stross of The New York Times looked at Steve Jobs’ years in the wilderness running NeXT Computers and concluded the lessons he learned were essential to making Apple the success it is today.

While leading NeXT Jobs obsessed about detail, famously leaving his key customers waiting while he discussed the layout of sprinklers in the landscaped gardens.

On returning to Apple, Stross points out Apple’s management team has been remarkably stable and this stability, borne out of Jobs trusting his key staff to make the right decisions, is one of the reasons for the company’s success.

As we move into an era where information becomes a commodity and the old style of manager guarding their sources of knowledge becomes irrelevant, the trust based organisation is going to replace the command and control models of the past.

This is going to challenge to a lot of managers in private and public organisations. It will be interesting to see how enterprises, government agencies and political parties around the world manage those challenges.

The style of leader raising today is very different from those of the past.

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The strange story of the Stuxnet worm

A virus crippling the Iranian nuclear program could affect your business

The tale of the virus infecting Iran’s nuclear program is one of the fascinating stories of the computer world.

Whoever wrote the Stuxnet worm did a spectacular job in bringing together a number of security problems and then using two weak links — unpatched Windows servers and poorly designed programmable logic controller software — to create a mighty mess in the target organisation.

The scary thing with a rootkit like Stuxnet is that once it has got into the system, you can never be sure whether you’ve properly got rid of it.

What’s worse, this program will be writing to the Programmable Logic Controllers the infected computers supervise so plant operators will never know exactly what changes might have carried out on the devices essential to a plant’s operations and safety.

Damaging Iranian nuclear plants

A report on the Make The World A Better Place websites over the weekend indicates the Stuxnet Worm may have damaged the Iranian nuclear reactor program.

The story behind the Suxnet worm is remarkable. It appears this little beast is a sophisticated act of sabotage involving using a number of weaknesses in computer systems as detailed by Computer World in their Stuxnet Worm hits Industrial Systems and is Stuxnet the best Malware Ever articles.

The risk of unpatched systems

One of the things that leaps out is how servers running unpatched systems are an important part of the infection process. The Stuxnet worm partly relies on a security hole that was patched by Microsoft two years ago so obviously the Iranian servers were running an unpatched, older version of Windows.

This is fairly common in the automation industries. I’ve personally seen outdated, unpatched Windows servers running CCTV, security, home automation and dispatch systems. They are in that state because the equipment vendors have supplied the equipment and then failed to maintain them.

These companies deserve real criticism for using off the shelf, commercial software to run mission critical systems that it was never designed to do.

Commercial programs like the various Windows, Mac and other mass market operating systems are designed for general use, they come with a whole range of service and features that industrial control systems don’t need. In fact, the Stuxnet worm uses one of those services, the printer spooler, to give itself control of the system.

Securing industrial systems

These industrial systems require far more basic and secure control programs, a cheap option would be a customised Linux version with all the unnecessary features stripped out. In the case of Siemens, the providers of the PLCs supplied to the Iranian government, it’s disappointing such a big organisation couldn’t build its own software to control these systems.

Business owners, and anyone who has computer controlled equipment in the premises, need to ask some hard questions to their suppliers about how secure supplied computer equipment is in this age of networked services and Internet worms.

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A single point of failure

Where are the weak spots in your organisation?

If anyone had any doubts about the importance of technology to the modern business, they only have to ask one of Virgin Blue’s staff or customers about the last three days of disruption.

“An external supplier’s hardware failure” is the given reason for the problems and it shows how we all need to be conscious of the key “choke points” in our business processes where a disruption will quickly bring operations to a crawl or stop.

For any organisation risk arises when those choke points rely on one thing — it could be a person, a computer or a physical widget — for the system to keep running. Should that one item fail, then the organisation stops. In Virgin’s case that thing appears to have been a router or server controlling their booking systems.

A single point of failure is the Achilles heel of any organisation, anything one item that can disrupt operations has to be identified and contingencies developed so when a failure happens, and it will, the organisation can quickly move to a work around.

In Virgin’s case it appears they were prepared for a disruption of up to three hours but when the booking system outage dragged on for 21 hours their fallback procedures were simply overwhelmed.

We often think of these things as technically related but often it’s something more mundane like a burst watermain blocking access to your shop or only one person, who happens to be driving along the Gunbarrel Highway for the next six weeks, has the keys to the fuse box.

In fact those human points of failure, where only one person in the organisation knows the combination to the safe, the bank account PIN or the password to the company’s servers, are probably the riskiest points of failure of all.

Another common point of  failure is relying on supplier contracts and service level agreements. Warranties and indemnities are nice to have, assuming they are enforceable when you need them, but they won’t fix the damage to a company’s reputation when a crisis on Virgin’s scale hits.

Even if you have a guaranteed response time, as it appears Virgin had, you need to have something in place to keep the business running in the meantime. Also “response time” is how long it takes your supplier to start doing something about the problem, not the actual time to fix.

Regardless of how well we plan and how watertight our supplier contracts and SLAs are, crises happen and that’s when the quality of a business and its management are tested. One sure indicator of a poorly run, bureaucratic organisation is when management hide at the first sign of trouble.

For Virgin, that’s a good sign. I had to reluctantly call them yesterday to deal with a problem and ended up with a good customer experience.

The very helpful Ruby not only called me back when the line dropped out but she also revealed she was a PA, not a regular call centre worker and all the office staff, including managers, were manning the phones.

Ruby turned out to be a real gem, not only quickly fixing my problem but also wiping out the additional charges without prompting.

That at least is an encouraging sign about their organisation and I hope Ruby and her colleagues get a thank you from the man with the beard when the problems settle down.

Virgin’s problems though show us that as business owners and managers, we need to understand where the points of failure are in our organisations and how we would deal with them should bad luck strike.

You might want to walk around your organisation, sit down with your staff and work through where the points of failure, both human and technological, in your organisation may be.

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Small Business Internet Marketing Secrets

Join three of Australia’s top experts to improve how your business is seen online.

An effective web presence that makes the most of traditional marketing, the Internet and social media is essential to for any growing business.

The Small Business Internet Marketing Secrets workshop brings together three of Australia’s leading Internet and marketing experts; Paul Wallbank, Michelle Gamble and Lara Solomon to reveal the secrets of finding and keeping customers online.

We’ll be covering how the Internet fits into your marketing plan, setting up an effective web presence and using social media to spread the word about your business.

Thanks to our corporate supporters, Sensis, we’ll have an iPad to give away to one of our lucky attendees.

Small Business Internet Marketing Secrets will be held in Sydney on September 28 where Lara, Michelle and Paul will show you how to get a cost effective presence online.

Registrations are open now for a discounted early bird rate at the Marketing Angels website. Move fast as spaces are limited

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the failure imperative

To succeed, we need to risk failure

Reading an Inc Magazine profile of TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington, one of the quotes that leapt out of the story was Arrington’s view on entrepreneurs and failure;

Our main competitive advantage is that my team and I truly love entrepreneurs. They’re my rock stars. I’ve always been fascinated by entrepreneurs. I had four businesses that did not work out. TechCrunch is my first real success, and it happened by accident. If I were to write a book, it would be about what drives entrepreneurs. I meet the winners, and the losers, too. Most of them could go out and get a perfectly reasonable job as an accountant or a lawyer. Instead, they risk everything for almost certain failure. The losers are actually more interesting sometimes. You learn a ton from failure.

“You learn a ton from failure”

We have a habit of celebrating the winners and ignoring the ventures that didn’t work out, if we don’t outright scorn them.

The thing is we learn from the failures — the misjudgements, bad luck and downright stupid ideas that we all have when running a business teach us about ourselves, our partners and the world around us.

We need to be valuing those lessons as they prepare us for when we do have a success.

The world is becoming increasingly risk adverse and the paradox there is that by avoiding failure, we ultimately reduce our chances of success.

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Dealing with a telco dispute

ten ways to resolve a phone company or Internet problem

Once again, Australian telcos find themselves being criticised by regulators and consumer groups for their poor performance. This time over poor service, complexity of bills and overcharging on “freecall” numbers.

The frustrating thing with all of these complaint is they are nothing new, as shown by an earlier version of this article in 2007.

So the problems with phone and Internet companies remain and many customers, both consumers and businesses, are forced to go through the time wasting dance of dealing with call centres, complex contracts and often finishing with consumer protection organisations like the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman or other state and Federal authorities.

However there are ways of reducing the problems and improving your chances of resolving issues quickly and on your terms;

Call them

The first step when you realise you have a problem is to call them. This is the quickest and easiest way to resolve things. If you can solve the problem at this point, you will save a lot of time, money and frustration.

When dealing with any call centre, there are a few important things to remember. You must remain polite, you must never make threats and you should note everything. A lot of this can be easier said than done.

Take notes

From the first call, you must take notes. Every time you speak to the call centre you must note the date and time you have made the call, the time they answered, the name of the person you spoke to, what you discussed, what was agreed (if anything) and the time the call ended. Any important discussions should be confirmed in writing.

Be Calm and Polite

At every stage of the process you must stay cool and polite. Do not lose your temper and do not abuse people. If you find the person you are dealing with is rude or provocative, or if find your blood pressure rising, then politely finish the conversation and call back later later.

Don’t Make Threats

Making threats will hurt your argument and draw the process out. Threatening people only makes their attitude harder or locks them into a position where they cannot negotiate with you.

Suing the ISP, complaining to the TIO, going to the media or calling consumer affairs are all options you have available should everything else fail but the aim is to settle the matter quickly and amicably without going to the time and expense of complaining to other authorities.

Do it in writing

It is important to confirm everything in writing. All too often people believe a matter has been settled only to find it is still a problem months or years later. Follow up any important conversations with a letter confirming the details including the time, date and person you discussed the issue with.

This is very important if you have reached an agreement settling a billing dispute. Confirm the details and the agreement in a letter sent by registered post to the organisation, any faxes or emails should be followed up by a letter.

Any emails about the matter should be printed out. Despite the claims of a paperless world, the only thing that really matters in disputes is what is written on paper.

Make sure you keep the full story in writing and this includes printing out emails and web pages.

Follow the ISPs complaint procedure

You may need to start a formal complaint within the organisation’s internal complaints or appeals procedures, the ISP or telco support line should be able to tell you how to do this. For smaller ISPs there may not be any formal procedures. A letter to the senior management may be necessary to get the right person to respond.

Contact the ISPs management

If the ISP doesn’t have a formal dispute procedure, or if it doesn’t respond, forward your complaints with copies of all the supporting documentation to the directors and Managing Director or CEO of the company concerned.

Generally directors and senior managers hate this and will make their displeasure known to the people responsible within their organisation. Again, be polite and respectful, make no threats and express your desire to settle the matter quickly and amicably.

Pay the bill

Some ISPs have a habit of calling in the debt collectors at an early stage. This complicates the matter and can also affect your credit record. Generally, it’s a good idea to pay any disputed amounts and then continue arguing about the facts of the dispute.

If you have direct debits with the ISP it may be necessary to stop these to avoid further disputed debits to your account. Do this in writing to the both the ISP and your bank with a cover letter informing them the direct debit has stopped. If you do this, make sure you are within your contract and you have a backup Internet service as the ISP will almost certainly stop your service immediately.

Complain to the TIO

If you are still unhappy, complain to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. They like you fill in their web complaint form but they will accept phone calls and written complaints.

Keep in mind they will not help you unless you’ve already tried to resolve the problem with the provider, they also won’t assist if you’ve complained to other organisations which is another reason not to make threats earlier in the process.

Further complaints

Despite all of the above, it’s still possible not to have resolved the problem with an ISP. The next step is to complain to your state consumer affairs department or the ACCC. You can also seek advice from your solicitor or local community legal centre.

The aim with any dispute is to settle it quickly and amicably. The important thing is to contact your provider quickly if you have a problem. Internet providers can be difficult to deal with but with a combination of patience, persistence, good record keeping and a cool temper, you can resolve most problems on your terms.

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ABC Newcastle and Upper Hunter: Dealing with a telco dispute

Dealing with a dispute over an Internet or phone bill can be a frustrating experience. But there are ways to deal with the problem and get the result you want.

Join Carol Duncan and Paul Wallbank from 2.40pm on Monday, September 20 to look the best ways to reduce stress when dealing with call centres and billing departments.

We have further information on this topic at Dealing with an ISP dispute.

Tune into ABC 1233 Newcastle or ABC Upper Hunter from 2.40pm or listen online through the ABC Newcastle webpage. We love to hear from listeners so feel free call in with your questions or comments on 1300 233 222 or text on 19922702. If you’re on Twitter you can tweet paul at @paulwallbank and 1233 Newcastle on @1233newcastle.

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