Business Management - Operations

At just 42 years old, Southeastern CEO Don Mader possesses a vision, charisma and M&A deal-making intuition far beyond his age. With 230 employees working out of five locations, Southeastern is on track to achieve $60 million in sales this year, up from $47 million in 2012.

Zoo Printing has un-veiled a new location in West Deptford, NJ. This new production facility shortens shipping times to the East Coast without requiring rush shipping or additional production costs. Combined with its locations in Southern California and Kentucky, Zoo says it can now deliver almost anywhere in the U.S. within one to two days using standard ground shipping.

In print, experts look not just to leaders like Joel Quadracci or Thomas Quinlan III, but also to leaders in other fields like Jamie Dimon and Eric Schmidt. Experts look beyond today and look beyond our industry, to develop a vision for what lies beyond.

Brokering or outsourcing has become more prevalent, especially for smaller firms that do not have the resources to keep up with rapidly increasing technology advancements. Also in recent years, “trade printers” have become more prevalent for certain types of work at very good prices. However, if the company brokering the work is not adding value to the job from other services performed, they are really in a potentially low-margin, commodity market.

Practice makes us better; it builds patterns and representations in our minds that enable us to see what others cannot. It makes us experts. Have you ever embarrassed yourself in front of your family by practicing a presentation aloud? If not, perhaps you should.

Our software company receives calls from business owners all over the United States and around the world, sharing their frustrations about being bogged down in day-to-day operations. They seek help in controlling seemingly endless variables in processes that “normally” run a business. But, what many of those overwhelmed owners describe as "normal" or "business as usual”...I would call CHAOS!

Two small towns in northern Wisconsin - Rhinelander, population 7,800, and Mosinee, 3,988 - are the latest to feel the paper mill jitters that have cast a pall across the economy of the state's forested northern half.

Both worry that their respective mills, each owned by money-losing Wausau Paper Corp., are destined for closure.

With the adoption of cross-media services, print no longer is a majority holder when it comes to media distribution. I view this as a time in the industry full of opportunity to reinvent ourselves to better serve the needs of brand owners in their pursuit of conveying a message at the right time to the right audience through unique media channels.

The term I have been using to define “Unstructured Knowledge” is CHAOS, caused by a lack of simple, common sense systems. I suggest you begin TODAY, building an Operation Manual for your organization. You can start by downloading information on how your business operates, out of the heads of your key employees, into written documents BEFORE your best sources of knowledge walk out the door.

Set your own “sequester” and have some fun with it. We all get too serious as managers, and if we create some fun around serious issues, they can become more manageable.