Business Management - Operations

You might remember the Mr. Magoo cartoons, years ago. While Magoo drove his motor car—smiling, singing, and enjoying his day—bedlam was always breaking out all around him. It was the OTHER people who were the recipients of Magoo’s erratic and chaotic handling of his vehicle. More than a few business owners seem to suffer from “The Magoo Syndrome!” Could that be YOU?

We are always nervous about informing our customers that our services will cost more. However, I have always looked on paper price increases as more of an opportunity than a problem.

Sixty is the new 50, 50 is the new 40 and so on. Most of us will most likely live well into our 80's. This puts a new reality on not only how long we must fund retirement but also how long we can be a productive citizen.

As our businesses grow, we tend to make do with the space and walls in place with very little thought given to the most efficient workflow. The anticipated expense and disruption of activity often prevents us from making the changes to work spaces and customer areas.

The industry continues to shrink, as evidenced by a brisk 2013 transaction season, capped by the jaw-dropping pickup of Consolidated Graphics by RR Donnelley. And while it was by far and away the biggest deal in '13, a glimpse at the PI 400 can provide further evidence of a shrinking market.

Good business sense and sensibility should tell us to understand why people react and behave as they do. We can then go about managing them in a way that will result in the most productivity, as well as career growth for the individual. It will cause us a lot less agony in dealing with them and wondering what we are doing wrong...nothing.

In a hopeful sign for the state’s forest industries, Sappi Fine Paper in Cloquet, MN, announced Wednesday that its $170 million conversion from making pulp for paper to making pulp for clothing has been successful. The mill reached its production goal of 1,050 tons per day of what’s known as chemical cellulose—in September.

The new pulp, which is the hottest forest industry product on the market, is generally sold to textile mills in Asia, blended with other materials and made into thread. Fast-growing demand for the product has outlined one possible future for a forestry industry struggling with the terminal

With just a little thought and creativity you can FIX the things you DO know, that are causing chaos in your company. Many fixes are very simple to implement with just a little initiative and team work.

Having a higher calling and purpose than just making money should be important when we ponder our lives and contributions. My former boss and mentor Bill McIntyre was instrumental in developing a very concise mission statement for our company back in the early 1990’s. It is: To Enhance the Value of the Businesses We Serve. To us, it means much more than making money.

International Paper sees a fundamental shift in the demand for uncoated paper in North America. The company stated as part of the Courtland announcement that “the demand for uncoated freesheet in North America has been in decline since 1999 and has recently accelerated as consumers continue to switch to electronic alternatives such as online publications and electronic billing and filing.”

This comment is very similar to the answer Staples management gave a few weeks ago when explaining disappointing 2Q 2013 earnings.