Eddielogic

– Thoughts on Strategy and Management

A short review of 2010

Basically it is a little bit to earlier for an annual review, isn’t it? The idea to name this post review considered the fact that my last post is dated April 8th 2010. What happened? The last months have been full with changes and challenging projects in my professional life, most of them quite time consuming. In addition – well the term “in addition” is definitely an underestimation – our sweet sunshine Stella Christin became 2 years; hence now she wants to have “more” from her parents and discovers her world more and more.

To illustrate the last months I post some kind of timeline with some illustrations and pictures.

May 2010 – I

The advisory board of our corporate group decides to sell the operative business and the brand of BAG (the company I work for as commercial director and authorized officer) to an external investor, the DZB BANK. This transaction offers amazing opportunities for us to develop our business model and to establish new financial services for our customers. Since we are familiar with our future colleagues from a major IT project, we were very happy with this development. Together with a colleague from our new parent company I became managing director of the new company.



May 2010 – II

Due to projects planned in 2009 I traveled to Kazakhstan in order to run a seminar for local publishers. The 2 day seminar focuses on business fundamentals, financial controlling and positioning. “My students” are managers from publishing houses in Kirgizstan and Kazakhstan; they all are keen on learning new things. It really enjoy teaching and discussing. Our expedition to the DAUIR-publishing house was very interesting, too. It was my very first training by using consecutive interpreting. My translator was a teacher from the University of Almaty and it worked very well.

How to get to Kazakhstan? There are two basic options: (a) a non-stop flight from Frankfurt to Almaty, which is very expensive and lets you arrive at midnight. (b) a transfer flight from Frankfurt to Prague and then from Prague to Almaty with Czech Airlines. This is less expensive and lets you arrive in the morning. Option b is the better one.

 

Discussion during the break

 


 

Books from Kazakhstan

 

My translator and me

 

My students

 

Visit of the DAUIR-publishing house

 

June – July 2010

We plan to relocate the new company within in Frankfurt. There is a lot of office space available at this time; a calculation of a real estate broker shows the dimension. In sum around the size of 20 office towers like the one of Commerzbank – which is huge – is available.

The Commerzbank Tower

At the end of June we decide for an office space on the Hanauer Landstrasse, the Lighttower.

The new BAG office

 

August 2010

Dagmar, Stelle Christin and I went on Vacation to Ameland (Dutch Island in the Northern Sea)

 

 

September 2010

My colleagues and I prepare the last measures for the relocation of BAG. Everything works fine; the service partners and we meet all milestones and project goals.

Craftsmen prepare installation material for the new office

 

Packing case as far as the eye can see

 


Short lunch during Saturday

 

October 2010

In BAG we shift our focus to the new SAP system and the migration in January 2011.

Regarding my PhD-dissertation I made good progress with the data analysis of my field research. Results are clear and precise; based on these findings I will be able to summarize recommendations for a best practice approach in strategic planning fo banks.

Figure 63: Rank of tools and methods for portfolio analysis and results aggregation

 

Product-market matrix, SWOT and BCG-matrix are the most relevant tools and methods for this step (portfolio analysis and results aggregation) of strategic planning. On average no tool has been classified as very relevant; however theses 3 tools have been voted as relevant.

 

November 2010

I write this post. Keep in touch!

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