Look before you leap

Understanding your business to promote healthy growth

Renovate Before You Innovate

Sergio Zyman has courted controversy in the past with his books The End of Marketing As We Know It and The End of Advertising As We Know It. His newest book follows a similar path. Renovate Before You Innovate: Why doing the new thing might not be the right thing suggests, like Zyman’s first book did, that a company reorder its priorities. In this case, he sets a cautionary note — don’t rush headlong into creating new products or entering new markets before you’ve taken a good look at your product.

Zyman shows how any executive can benefit from proven renovation strategies, used by companies like Chase Bank, Alcoa, and Callaway Golf. He tells a wide variety of renovation success stories of companies like UPS, who creatively overhauled their business from shipping to “enabling global commerce.” By doing so, they expanded overseas and grew into areas like customs brokerage and consulting — without straying from their core focus.

The book stresses that the secret to success is new thinking, not necessarily new products.

By Sergion Zyman and Armin A. Brott. Published by Portfolio (The Penguin Group). For more information visit www.zyman.com.

Strategic Supply Chain Management

On several occasions in the pages of CMA Management we have profiled innovators in strategic supply chain management. However, if you are looking for a useful reference guide, Strategic Supply Chain Management: The top 5 disciplines for top performance certainly offers a wide variety of information. The five disciplines from the title are as follows:

• View your supply chain as a strategic asset and develop a supply chain strategy that supports the company’s overall business.
• Develop an end-to-end process architecture.
• Design your organization for performance and make sure you have the skills necessary to adapt in the future.
• Build the right collaborative model.
• Use metrics to drive business success.

Although not strikingly new for well-informed management accountants, the book does offer real-world examples that bring the concepts behind supply chain success to life.

By Shoshanah Cohen and Joseph Roussel. Published by McGraw-Hill Companies. For more information visit www.books.mcgraw-hill.com.

Continuous Disclosure Reviews

In July, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced that there would be a harmonization of continuous disclosure reviews. This affects reporting issuers in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. The program will complement the guidance in National Instrument 51-102, Continuous Disclosure Obligations, by enhancing the consistency in the scope and level of reviews carried out across Canada.

Next Steps in National Harmonization of Securities Rules — Continuous Disclosure Reviews was released by KPMG in August. It offers details of what companies can expect from these reviews, and provides some reminders on continuous disclosure items that may be a focus for regulators.

For the full article visit www.kpmg.ca/unitymail/accountability/en/issues/elert2004-005.html.

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