Totally, Totally Global Inc., The Novel: mini chapter 2

Previously on Totally, Totally, Global Inc. Sales are down. Morale is down. 

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And me? Head of Strategy. The trouble is of course nobody likes strategy: it’s too hard. It requires thinking. They like ‘comms’. And they can ‘force’ sales. Although they don’t like the results much. That’s because they don’t do strategy.

Strategy requires you to slow down and think. It requires you to put down your phone for a while. It requires you to have some hard data rather than a portfolio of generalisations and one-off anecdotes. The buzz is long-term compared to the short-term of an ad campaign or ‘deal’ with a major client. And that short-term buzz so often results in painful discussions in the War Room on a bleak Monday morning. Bleak even if the sun is shining outside.

Tim Wrangling, CEO: So Hemel, things still don’t look good. Revenue down, profits certainly down and share slipping away from us. What’s the plan?

Hemel Hempstead, Sales Supremo: If I may go through a few slides I think I can cover off all of your points, Tim.

TW: Hemel, for once, just give it to me in a couple of sentences. Do we know what we are doing?

I left at that point. It was going to be painful. It was not that I was squeaky clean by any stretch of the imagination. Over a year ago at the critical off site I should have fought harder and longer to force the team to really, really decide what we were doing rather than generate just another inflated spread-sheet of sales figures. In the annals of PC history the story of what VisiCalc did for the Apple computer and business planning is oft told. But the ease of the modern spread-sheet dangerously allows any set of figures to be made to appear to work if pummelled enough.

TBC...

DID you miss mini chapter 1 ?