Word of Mouth Marketing I

Currently I am reading this book titled "The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing." by George Silverman. I have read until Chapter 6. In the first few chapters, it is talking about how come the word-of-mouth marketing is so powerful. The first reason is because it actually reduce the decision time and costs and depending on the word-of-mouth that the prospects listen to, the extent of reducing the decision time and costs would be different. It also talks about the nine levels of word-of-mouth marketing, from spewing bad things about your products and services to eagerly sharing what is good about your products and services.

The book also says what type of medium of word-of-mouth marketing should be used for the niche market that you want to focus on. For example, if you are targeting innovators, the keywords that should be used in your word-of-mouth marketing would be, "It's so new and unusual, no one's even heard of it. It works on a totally new principle. Most people wouldn't even understand it." Sentence of similar nature would get the innovator market to be interested in your products or services.

The book also breaks the buying process into the following stages.
1) Deciding to Decide
2) Weighing Information
3) Trial
4) Implementing
5) Expanding Commitment

In the end, I strongly recommend this book to people who are interested in marketing, no matter whether you are interested in knowing more about Word-of-Mouth Marketing. I am now reading the section about Expert to Expert/Expert to Peer/Peer to Peer Word-of-Mouth.

One point I hope to stress to users is, have you rewarded customers that persuade their friends or acquaintances to buy your product? I think this is an area that is greatly neglected by most of the companies. Imagine if you are rewarded for sharing a product that you loved, you would be extremely loyal to the product. As mentioned in many business books, it is cheaper to make a repeat sale then to make a new sale. Take note of this.

Power and Strategy Execution

Relating to Sun Zi Art of War on Army Organization. After reading Making Strategy Work, Chapter Nine. I finally notice a small difference between military and business. A point that is not specified in most of the military works that I have read.

In business, there is such a thing as power influence from other departments which is something that is not, at least commonly, seen in war. I think this may have derived from the very small difference between war and business.

According to the book, power by a certain department in a company is a result of resource allocation and functions. For example, a certain department may have certain things, that arises from resources it has or dept's functions, that another department wants in order to function. This created a dependece and in the end, power can be wield to influence this other department. And given human nature, each individual department would like to retain and perpetuate its power. This would then have an influence on strategy execution. This desire to perpetuate power is what is commonly known as office politics.

The department that wields the most power will have an influence on whether the strategy would be executed successfully. So high level management, please take note of how much power you have given to specific departments through resource allocation and function scope (a result of structure). Having too much power concentrated on one or a few departments could jeopardise the successful exceution of strategy.

Unity

I am currently reading the Six Strategies of Jiang Tai Gong. He is the advisor to the King Wen and Wu of the Zhou Dynasty. He helped the two kings to overthrow the Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty.

There is a paragraph that mentioned the importance of unity. With unity, then the troops can be used to achieve the objectives of war, because a disunited troops will not act as a strong unit but act as several small units that would be easily overcome.

In Sun Zi Art of War, there is mentioned of unity as well. The people of the nation is united behind the ruler and the troops move in one single unit. Many of the troops deployment and movement strategies requires troops to move in a single unit. For example when attacking, it is required that the troops concentrate on the weakness of the enemy. When feigning weakness, the whole troops must work together to make sure the enemy will perceive them in disarray which would require that the troops work together as a unit.

So how do we ensure unity in business, well there are many ways. One is to improve communication between everyone in the company. One is to flatten the structure, but that may result in a need for change in business strategy and culture. Because corporate structure can affect your execution of business strategy and corporate culture.

But communication is the one and only method to ensure unity. Communication is both and art and a science that will take years to master even if it is corporate style. Other things that can ensure unity is during goal setting time within the departments. And again the values, vision and mission of the company will also keep the company united as one.

As I mentioned before, in the book "Built to Last", the visionary companies focus on getting the people that will fit into the values, mission and vision of the company first before capabilities are considered. Thus, again shows the importance of having unity in the companies.

So as we can see, there are a lot of business applications we can find from these Art of War from Ancient Chinese Military Strategists. Cheers!

Rewards and Punishment Part II

As most of you may know, I am reading the book "Making Strategy Works" published by Wharton School Publishing. Inside, the book it is talking about the components that are critical in making your corporate or business strategy works. So one chapter was devoted to Rewards and Punishment. As I mentioned in my previous blog, in many of the ancient chinese military works, there are many mentioned of having a good system of rewards and punishment. So I just want to share some of the thoughts and stuff that I have read here.

There are many brief mentioned of the system of rewards and punishment in many of the works, for example, Sun Zi Art of War, Six Strategist by Jiang Taigong, Han Fei Zi and many others. They only mentioned that the system must be transparent and should be the same regardless of who. Which means, there is no such thing as biasness, all are treated equal under the system.

The system is suppose to reward the correct behavior and rectify the undesirable behavior in the army, thus it is necessary as it impose certain level of discipline and unity into the troops which is critical because how can one fight an army that has a mind of its own or, each individual in the army act according to what they deem fancy.

Bringing this to business will be actually, rewards and punishment should help the company's staff to focus on getting the short term goals that would ultimately lead to the success of execution of strategy. So rewards must be given immediately when the target has been reached and like I mentioned in another set of blog, the goals set must be clear-cut. There is no such thing as grey area. It is either achieved or not achieved yet. And once it is achieved, rewards must be given out quick so as to send a signal that you value and recognize the staff's contribution to achieving the short term goal. Thus would incentivise him to quickly achieve the next goal, knowing that once he achieved it, the rewards would be given as promised. This is just one side of the integrity of the rewards and punishment system. When rules are broken, some form of punishment must be meted out as well, but one must also built in the consideration of the circumstances as well. For example, if the goals set was to achieve, 20% increase in sales revenue, but the manager only achieved 16% but his peers in other companies only achieved 12% due to the industry conditions, then punishment should still be meted out but one must be lenient not to enforce the full extent of the punishment. Even if the person committing the mistake is of the highest level of authority, he must also show that he is liable for punishment as well. Or else he himself would compromise the integrity of the system and in the end incur an even larger costs to the company.

In Romance of Three Kingdoms, in one of the scenario, Cao Cao order his troops not to trample the rice fields of the commoners, those who committ the offense will be executed, but during the march, his horse was startled by the birds that suddenly appear from the rice fields, his horse ran through the rice field, trampling a good part of it. He wanted to execute himself, to maintain the integrity of the system, but his advisor knows his intention and told him how can the leader be executed, so in the end, Cao Cao cut his hair to represent that he has been 'executed'. (In the past, hair is not cut because it is believed that since any part of the body is given by the parents, it would be unfilial to cause 'hurt' to the body) Thus, Cao Cao was able to maintain the integrity of the system.

Of course in business, things are not so straightforward. The extent of rewards and punishment is also important as well. One must reward enough to make his staff motivated to achieve short term goals on time. Too small an extent of reward does not have a good effect of motivation, too large an extent would incur unnecessary costs to the company. Too small an extent of punishment, may cause the mistake to be repeated. Too large an extent may actually weaken the morale of the staff, because the person being punished may hold grudges and consequences maybe unthinkable. And the extent may be difficult to grasp when the rewards promised or punishment meted out maybe to a group of person.

So this system is a critical part of strategy execution, and definitely it is an art and science to implement it successfully. Hope I can discover more of it and share it with readers here.

Cheers!

Swiftness

其用战也贵速，久则兵钝挫锐，攻城则力屈，久暴师则国用不足。夫钝兵挫锐，屈力殚货，则诸侯乘其弊而起，虽有智者，不能善其后。故兵闻拙速，未睹巧之久也。夫兵久而国利者，未之有也。故不尽知用兵之害者，则不能尽知用兵之利也。

The purpose of raising an army is to achieve swift and decisive victory. If victory cannot be achieved quickly, the army would be lethargic and lose their fighting spirit. When they attacked city walls, they would be greatly exhausted. If the army is out on a military campaign for too long, the nation’s resources would be greatly depleted. When the army is in a bad shape and the resources of the nation are exhausted, other neighboring warlords would capitalize on these weaknesses by launching an attack on us. Even if there are clever and capable strategists or advisors, they would not be able to reverse the situation.

While blunders are known to occur during military operations, one has yet witness a successful military operations where there are long delays. No one has seen a military campaign where the longer the campaign, the more beneficial it is to the nation.

Someone who does not fully understand the inherent danger of deploying troops would also not understand the advantages of using it.

Now where can we apply the concept of swiftness in business? Well most people would say, when we launch a marketing campaign, it must be swift and capture the attention of target market fast. Or when we want to implement a strategy against business competitors, the strategy must be implemented swiftly so that 'damage' is done without any resistance from our business competitors. These are normal areas most people can think of when applying swiftness.

In my opinion, there are other places where swiftness can be used as well. Recently, the SK-II saga in China is one good example where swiftness can be applied. When facing bad press, a company should swiftly have a plan to compensate those affected and also do what a responsible company should do, for example, product recall and make arrangement for refund of payment. By responding to these crises fast, would you be able to firstly reduce damage, secondly, do not let customer loyalty drop down too much so much so it does not pass the threshold level and you may even get new customers as well, because consumers will know that buying your product will reduce the risk they have to bear. And in times like this, if you swifly reduce damage, you may have a few less customers to badmouth about your services.

So how can we act swiftly? The key is to overprepare and always play out many possible scenarios. For example if you are in the food business, there maybe food poisoning, illegal substance found in raw materials, medical studies show that eating one of the raw materials you use is harmful and so on. You have to have your whole supply and manufacturing process put on a piece of paper and play out the various scenario that can happen to each stage of the process, and through these scenarios, play out what are the rectifying plan you can have, to swiftly counter the scenario.

Management of Talent -Sun Zi Part 2

As most of you who are familiar and waiting for this blog to update, I am back and I hope to commit at least one entry per week for this blog.


将听吾计，用之必胜，留之。将不听吾计，用之必败，去之。计利以听，乃为之势，以佐其外。势者，因利而制权也。

Generals who adopt my strategies would be able to win the battle; he must be retained. Generals who do not adopt my strategies would not be able to win the battle, he must be removed. Besides adopting the proposed plans and strategies, the general must create or take advantage of situations to push for success and victories.

Yes, I have mentioned this sentence before in my previous blog entry, but I shall talk more abt it substantiated with this book titled " Built to Last". People who read a lot of business books will know that this book is a must read and a prequel to "From Good to Great" In one of the chapters in the book, it was talking that these visionaries companies and strong advocate of their ideologies. And they make sure that their staff from ALL levels are able to follow these ideologies. Most of them have their own training program that will make sure these ideologies are imprint on to present and new staff. With these ideologies in mind, the staff are them given a lot of latitude in how they carry out their work as long as they adhere to the ideologies set out by the company. The staff can make some mistakes as long as these mistakes do not go against the company's ideologies, but once they go against it, even for only one time, they are immediately sacked from the company, no excuses. But of course with this strong requirement of following the company's ideologies, staff are paid well compare to other companies in the same industry. So those that believe and advocate their respective company's ideologies are rewarded extremely well, while those who cannot fit in are out sooner or later.

To a certain extent, these strong advocacy of ideologies also caused those that flourish in the visionary companies to be united. These unitedness is important as mentioned in Chapter 1 of Sun Zi Art of War or below.

道者，令民与上同意者也，可与之死，可与之生，民不畏危。

Political Leadership of Ruler refers to the ability of the ruler to unite the nation’s people and army for its cause. If the ruler is a strong leader, he is able to unite the whole nation, his people and army would be willing to lay down their lives for him and brave dangers.

These strong advocacy of ideologies set up would make the staff be united for many generations of CEO to come.

Chapter 1: Part VIII - Strike where Rival Least Expect

攻其不备，出其不意

Sun Zi said to attack places where your enemy is not well prepared or least expects an attack. It is not difficult to know the reason behind for saying such a statement. Only by attacking in such places would you have a greater chance of victory and at smaller costs because these are the places that have the least resistance.

BUSINESS APPLICATION (1): If you are a small business owner and fretting about the competition from big businesses or corporate. Why not look at how the big companies carry out their businesses. Ask their customers how they find the big companies’ services. Find the weaknesses in their services. This is the place where you can ‘attack’ and provide better services. For all you know, it may be because of the size of these big companies which is why such weaknesses appear. This is where you can actually work together with big companies to provide a more comprehensive service to customers, carving a niche for yourself.

LIFE AND BUSINESS APPLICATION (2): Remember in the first section of the commentary, where we say that initial planning and assessment are of vital importance. Looking from another point of view for this section’s header, have you overlook anything that you have planned recently, is there anything you have left out of your consideration in your initial planning? In this world of fast changing environment, some details that you once considered to be obsolete and some new details that require your attention could surface. Please note that the more details you look at and consider, the less chance that a crisis may hit you where you least expected. So the more details you expect, the more prepared you are. To quote from Rudolph W. Giuliani, PREPARE RELENTLESSLY.

Chapter 1: Part VII - Deception

兵者，诡道也。

Sun Zi mentioned that deception is also part of war. The reason is, as Sun Zi mentioned in the first line of the chapter, war can determine the survival of the nation and its people. So it is of great importance to gain as much advantages over the enemies as possible. Deception would be able to achieve that. Thus the wisdom of the generals comes into play. He must be able to execute his deception well so that the enemy will be completely taken into it and gain advantages or attack the enemies where he least expect it. Note that your enemies can also use deception on you as well.

From my opinion, the deciding factor whether a deception is well executed is the wisdom of the general. Wise generals would be able to come up with a fool proof plan, avoid being deceived by enemies and change his plan accordingly when the enemies are not deceived at all.

BUSINESS APPLICATION: In business, deceptions can also be used but I am not going to go into that. But what we can use here for business is the word ‘secrecy’. As we all know, corporate strategies must be kept secret in order to reap the full benefits after execution of it. If these strategies are leaked out, your business rivals would be able to at least prevent damage or in a worse case scenario, come up with a counter strategy and all your effort would be loss.

With the proliferation of computers and internet, companies should have a computer security policy that employees strongly adhere to. All employees should be informed of any breach of security and how the breach is made as well so precautions can be set up ASAP.

There used to be a study where most of the breach actually comes from employees. They are unknowing victims of corporate spies, providing them passwords that they can use. (Cannot remember where I read it though).

So secrecy and security is very impt to a company, please take note of it.

Chapter 1 Part VI : Management of Talent

将听吾计，用之必胜，留之。将不听吾计，用之必败，去之。

In this line, it is saying that generals who adopt his strategies would win and those who do not don't.

In those days, most of the officials in a country can be broken down into advisors and generals. Advisors would come up with strategies for administration of country like foreign policies and internal affairs and generals would usually be involved in the training of soldiers, resource preparation and so on.

So during war time, the military advisors would come up with the overall strategies and the ruler should decide which one to adopt. Once the overall strategies are set, task and duties are distributed out. We can see from here that, generals who follow orders would contribute greatly to the success execution of the overall plan, achieving the desired objectives. This could improve the odds of winning tremendously. That is why Sun Zi advocates the removal of generals who do not follow the overall strategies because these generals would be detrimental to the odds of winning. But Sun Zi also stress that generals should also be flexible and smart to grab or create chances that would help the army to gain decisive victory. As stated in the next line:

计利以听，乃为之势，以佐其外。势者，因利而制权也。

In business, it is best that those in the management position also follow the overall plan the company has planned out. So it is important to have a mission statement and plans. They should be conveyed to everybody in the company. As mentioned in previous blogs, involve the staff, as much as possible in writing the mission statement. For new staff, teach them with pride and enthusiam what is behind the mission statement. The mission statement should be a 'rallying' point allowing the management to have the flexibility to grab opportunities that surfaced and supports the mission statement.

The management should then be able to execute the plans well because that is what they are meant to do but in these times of volatile business conditions, management must also be able to grab chances that surface as well.

So have you given your management people room to maneuver and make decisions on their own or are you micro-managing?

CHAPTER 1 Part V

7) Administration of Rewards and Punishment (赏罚孰明？)

Here I would like to stress the importance of rewards and punishment. Han Fei Zi, a great politician during the Warring States Era stressed the importance of administering rewards and punishment, writing two chapters on it. He said that the administration of it is so important it actually determines the survival or demise of the nation. And equate the administration power of rewards and punishment of the ruler to the fangs and claws to a tiger. Without the power, the ruler would not be able to administer the affairs of the state well. Would anyone listen to their supervisor if it lacks the power to administer rewards and punishment? Of course not, because he has lost authority on you.

One of the two chapters written by Han Fei Zi, is about setting the rules and condition for rewards and punishment and the next chapter on how to administer it. The reason why a chapter was written on the administration is because during those days and even till now, we tend to reward more to people that we know and love and excuse our relatives or friends from punishment when they make a mistake. Why is this so? This is because firstly, we are human beings thus we have feelings and secondly is because these friends affect our social life. We do not want to offend them.

So it is important in the modern business that they structure their reward and punishment correctly so that their work is aligned with that of the business strategy and culture. For example if you reward base on individual sales, it is very likely you would not be promoting teamwork. If you reward base on individual product department performance, it is very unlikely that cross selling would not occur.

Besides aligning with the business strategy and culture, the administration of rewards and punishment plays a big part in talent management strategies as well. In business, the pay you give to your staff is always compared to one that is similar job scope and preferably in the same industry to make a good comparison. Beside the pay being compared with other similar jobs, it is also compared with inflation as well. Employee may feel shortchanged, especially in times of high inflation, when income increase cannot be in tune with inflation.

There are other factors that determine whether the administration is successful or not. But I shall leave it to other appropriate times.

Cheers!

Chapter 1 Part IV

5) Equipped level and numerical strength of army - Technology available to staff

Now in war the equipped level and the numerical strength of the army plays and important part in victory. Because the larger the army, the more you can strengthen you positions or attack more places to distract your enemy. The next best thing would be to equip your army with the best armor and weapon so that they have the advantage over the enemy’s army. This advantage, no matter how small or little, will be important during war. Because as I said in war, it is either live or death, for the nation as a whole.

So how does this relate to business? We can easily interpret this as the equipped level of your staff in carrying out their jobs. For instance, an employee cannot do much if you only provide her with a typewriter. All she can do is fill out forms or file a report. But if you provide her with a computer, now that is a totally different thing. She can do calculation of account, enter accounts and so on.

Each and every staff should be equipped with the bare necessities to help improve their work rate. We have seen how Wal-Mart is using the latest technology, RFID, to help improve their logistics and sales. By using technology, you would be able to provide your staff with real time data so that they can make quick decision and clinch sales easily. Of course all these have to be weighted against the costs of buying and installing the technology. Be well versed with the latest available technology, note their development and once it is advantageous to equip your staff with it, go ahead to buy it.

6) Training Level of Army – skill set and knowledge level of Staff

When we say equipped level, most people would quickly relate to technology available to staff, we tend to overlook the software which is the skill set of the staff. We need to send our staff to attain more skills and knowledge. Knowledge of the industry to feel the pulse of it, new developments in their field like sales and marketing, knowledge of maximising the efficiency of the technology available and so on. A computer is nothing if one does not have the knowledge to use. Now another point I want to mention here is that most employer would send their employees to pick up skills that are needed immediately but this often does not provide a company with a competitive edge, what employers should look out for is sending staff to obtain skills that are needed in the future so that you are well equipped to handle the new opportunities that you foresee coming and reduce the reaction lag as mention in Porter’s Competitive Strategy.

Now a lot of people worry that if you send these people to improve their skill sets, they would leave for greener pastures when they are poached for that skill. I would suggest that you make this clear to the employee and ask that he be contracted for a period of time or at least require the staff to pay part of the training fees, not substantially of course.

Chapter 1 Part III

I shall talk more about the next area.

4) Effective and Efficient Execution of Orders - Business Systems like inventory management, delivery system and others.

In the fourth sub areas proposed by Sun Zi, it queries whether an army is able to execute orders efficiently and effectively.

In war, if the orders are not clearly passed down to everyone in the army, confusion will prevail and would render the whole army useless and in the end the general would not be able to execute his strategy. So we can see from here is that strategies can be formulated but there would be risk in carrying out the strategy. In Romance of Three Kingdoms, we have marveled at the strategies that was formulated by Kong Ming, or more often known as Zhuge Liang, but if the generals that he delegated the assignment to was not able to execute them well, his strategies would be useless no matter how good it sound on paper.

Relating this to business, I think the most prominent thing that a company should go for is to improve the business systems in his company. Business systems could be logistic/supply chain systems, sales processing systems, HR systems and many more. As most companies, operate or expand, they should aim to improve their systems. Make it more convenient and effective for the staffs that are using it. Sometimes, as the companies expand too fast, like catering to several overseas market or relocation of some functions of the company to other countries and so on, some requirements that were needed could be redundant and new requirements & regulations or technology must be added to improve it.

So how do you improve the systems in your company? Well, need I say more, ask the people who are using the system. For example, for sales processing system, ask your salespeople, admin staff for the system. You may include your IT personnel to see if there could be some cost effective automation integrated into the process.

All in all, give your staff the necessary resources and convenience to carry out their task effectively and efficiently. Hope this bit of information would help those that are reading this. Cheers!

Chapter 1 Part II

Have been doing a lot of reading, have been reading Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy and also the former CEO of IBM, Louis V. Gerstner Who says elephants can’t dance? (For those who have read my other blog would know why I am reading two books at a time.) Both of these books are excellent so I would really recommend anyone who is interested in venturing into business to read these books. I am halfway through and I hope I will have time to put my thoughts on these books in this blog, as well.

Ok, I shall talk more about the first three areas of the 7 sub areas I was talking about in my previous blog.

1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals

As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the recent episode of Apprentice 3, in the graffiti competition, the leader of Magna Corp, was able to consult some of the kids from the street to provide some input to the graffiti that they were painting. In the end, because the focus group that determines the winner was able to identify with the graffiti, (the kids and the focus group came from the same neighborhood), the Magna Corp won the competition.

For those of you from big companies, it is definitely very difficult to involve the whole company. So the top management could decide some macro goals and vision, pass it down to the middle management and get them to craft out the goals of their department according to the goals or vision crafted by the top management and so on. What is important is the whole company can relate to the macro goals and vision painted by the top management.

Another important factor is the hiring process. Michael Dell, from Dell Computers stresses that it is important to hire people who is completely in sync with the company’s philosophy and objectives. This person’s thinking must be compatible with company’s value and belief. (Pls read Direct From Dell by Michael Dell).

2) Capability of Generals: Capability of Manager or Team Leader (Leadership)

This is more straightforward than the previous sub-area. This is one area that is quite important in my opinion. The reason why I say that is because firstly, a good leader would have been able to unite and command the respect of his army and people of the nation. A wise general would not be leading his army to attack when weather conditions are bad or terrain is unfavorable. Even if he is forced to do so, his wisdom (one of the characteristics for mentioned comparison) would be able make his troops avoid engaging his enemies or turn disadvantages into advantages. Good generals would be able to create a strong organization structure and control in his army through the other four characteristic mentioned for comparison.

The five capabilities that are advocated by Sun Zi are Wisdom, Benevolence, Courage, Discipline and Trustworthiness. Just these five characteristics are definitely not and exhaustive list of the characteristic of a good leader, but in my opinion these five are the most important so that an army, or in business, the project team or department to function properly. And from these five words, there are a lot of things to look out for, which I shall not write here or I would be writing a whole chapter. For those who are interested in discussing the five characteristics can drop me a mail. I would love to discuss such works with like-minded people.

3) Advantage of provided by Weather and Terrain: Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation

This is something that is not straightforward, not a lot of people can relate from weather and terrain with respect to which area of business. After reading some books and some thoughts, I would like many to take note of the difference.

For weather, we know that in war, the advantages and disadvantages presented by it can be tremendous and influence is wide ranging. It is one of the factors that we cannot control at all. For business, these could be the trends that are happening in the broad industry. Like certain consumer trends, e.g. Consumers are going for healthier food. Grey-ing market, Current Technology is going the convergent route and so on.

So what about terrain? Well after much thought I think it can be comparable to the market you are battling or catering to. Depending on the market and your strategic focus, the barriers of entry and exit are determined. If you have looked through Sun Zi Art of War, you would have known that when Sun Zi mentioned about terrain, it is most of the time, how easy or difficult one can enter the terrain. For a comprehensive list of barriers of entry or exit, I would recommend Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy which I am still reading.

So there you have it, very long, but I thoroughly enjoy writing these out for all those out there to help in your business. This is just a very short summary of the thoughts I have on Sun Zi Art of War. If you want more info, just drop me an email, I will contact you asap.

And also I am interested in meeting more people who share the same interest as me, so drop me a mail!

Cheers!

Business = War

As mentioned, I am going to write some thoughts on Sun Zi Art of War Application on Business. Please feel free to give me any comments and opinion that you have!

In the first part of Chapter 1 of Sun Zi Art of War, it was mentioned that going to war is of vital importance to the state, because it can determine whether it survives or not and also whether it will prosper or be destroyed. There is no in between. Since the stakes are high, initial planning and assessment are critical.

So which area should the ruler look at before deciding to go to war? Sun Zi proposed these five main areas and they are broken down into seven sub areas.

We can see from the writings that Sun Zi is a very meticulous person because he broke the five points down to the dimensions that one should look out for. For example, he broke down the terrain into whether it is high or low, near or far, wide plains or narrow paths, treacherous or accessible or the weather is broke down into cold or hot, night or day and which season it is in.

The 5 areas and 7 sub- areas are:

故经之已五，校之以计，而索其情: 一曰道，二曰天，三曰地，四曰将，五曰法。

1) Political leadership of the Ruler (道)
2) The weather where the battle is taking place (天)
3) The terrain where the battle is taking place （地）
4) Generalship, the person commanding the battle （将）
5) Army organization structure and systems （法）

7 Sub areas

a) Moral influence of a Ruler （主孰有道?)
b) Capability of General (将孰有能?)
c) Advantage of provided by Weather and Terrain (天地孰得?)
d) Effective and Efficient Execution of Orders (法令孰行?)
e) Equipped level and numerical strength of army (兵众孰强？)
f) Training level of army (士卒孰练？)
g) Administration of rewards and punishment (赏罚孰明？)

Relating to business aspect, these are important factors that determine the successful implementation of a company’s strategy. The key here is to relate these factors to business. There should not be much difficulty in relating these factors from military to business.

a) Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
b) Capability of Manager or Team Leader
c) Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation
d) Business Systems like inventory management, delivery system and others
e) Technology available to staff
f) Skill set and knowledge level of staff
g) Administration of rewards and punishment

In the next blog, I will talk more about the first three sub-areas and its application on business strategy assessment.

Strategist At Work

Hello to all those who are reading this.

I am currently reading Sun Tzu Art of War. Currently looking at where it can be applied to various aspect of business especially on strategies. So keep a look out for it. For those who are English educated only, there is a book I recommend, if you are really interested in Sun Tzu Art of War. The title is Sun Zi Art of War - An Illustrated Translation With Asian Perspectives and Insights by Prof Wee Chou Hou (Note: I am not receiving anything from him for recommending his book) His book is one of the best translated book on Sun Tzu Art of War I have seen. Since it is the only English Book on Sun Zi Art of War that was written by a Chinese.

In this blog, I am going to write about Sun Tzu Art of War first since I am re-reading it again and publish some thoughts and its application on BIZ. I will be going on to other Ancient Chinese Classics like Romance of Three Kingdoms, 36 Strategies, Wu Zi Art of War. Hope it will help those people who are at the executive level or just started their business.

I will also post some thoughts on business books that I am going to read as well. Do feel free to comment. Cheers!