For every purse and purpose

With the recent shake-up at Loblaws..er..Loblaw...(well, more on that in a minute) - I obviously started to pay very close attention to how things were moving in the House that Weston Built.

I started to notice a scarry parallel.. between Loblaws and GM. I was reminded of Alfred Sloan's famous quote:

"A car for every purse and purpose."

No Frills ~ Valu-Mart ~ Fortinos ~ Great Canadian Superstore ~ Loblaws ~ and now Loblaw Great Food

Sound familiar?

Chevrolet ~ Pontiac ~ Oldsmobile ~ Buik ~ Cadillac

The principle is great, until the brands start to swell, and consumers are left with too many overlaps, and a blurred brand.

You can buy high end Pontiacs with GM, and Fresh Fish at No Frills.

Huge pallets of Wal*Mart-esque discounts at the Superstore, and the disaster Cadillac Caterra.

If the brands are that blurry, how much clarity can there be in the Leadership Teams at either company?

Well.. I guess the lack of clarity finally came to a head at Loblaws.. let's hope the smoke cleared as they opened the door...

The Brilliant Issue

Want to know the game changers, upstarts, connectors and rebels in business?

See the May 2008 "Brilliant Issue" of Portfolio magazine. Some names you'll recognize like Rupert Murdoch and Steven Spielberg... others such as Anne Wojcicki, maybe not. She's the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Watch carefully who's on these lists!

Check it out here.

The Different Faces of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement means different things to people in different places, according to a new global HR survey...

In the UK and US, employees said their engagement was influenced by respect from their managers.

In Japan, pay equals engagement.

In France and India, the type of work they were doing determined their level of engagement.

In China employees look for benefits.

Germany? They say co-workers are the most important factor in engagement.

Meanwhile work-life balance was cited as an important component of engagement for most workers around the world. However, people in India and China did not necessarily feel it was crucial.

The ability to provide excellent customer service and corporate representation was also a large driver of engagement in most countries, especially in the UK. But Japan doesn't agree.

Link to article here.