McCurry

How about this for some common sense at last?

In the UK a few years ago McDonalds persecuted a poor woman called McDonald from Luton I think it was. Ms McDonald, her real name, by the way, opened a sandwich shop and, perhaps unsurprisingly, called it McDonald's sandwich shop.

No attempt at golden arch copycat, the shop was painted blue as I remember it and there was nothing to suggest that Ms McDonald was trying to do anything other than make an honest living for herself.

Big Mac took Ms McDonald to Court and won so the poor lady had to close her business ... change its name ... evil Big Mac.

The same has just happened in Malaysia apparently except that there the Courts are far more sane and McCurry (I think that's the name), a one outlet organisation providing chicken curries to Malay society, has been allowed to stay open and trade as if Big Mac didn't exist.

Let's hear it for the little guy and the rational Courts of Malaysia.

Duncan

Bonuses: just wait, it's going to get worse

Here is a prediction I think you won't be seeing anywhere else, for a while anyway.

The Fred Goodwin debacle at RBS has shown that anyone who gets themselves in a position to manipulate their bonus and pension payouts can do virtually what they like. Just wait, it will probably get worse and here is why:

• Share prices and so on are probably at or around rock bottom and many managers mistakenly relate their performance as a manager to their company's share price. This has been the case for a long time even though everyone appreciates it is far from a rational thing to do.
• Bonuses and possibly pension and even general remuneration packages are probably being set in terms of share prices now.
• Put the two together and you will see in the next two to five years or so that many managers and management teams will be "earning" massive bonuses and pension enhancements as a result of what will probably be major increases in share prices over those periods.

What is wrong with this and why am I warning you that it is going to happen? The share prices are going to rise ANYWAY, irrespective of the abilities and actions of the managers, above and beyond the minimum they can do to keep the business working.

Even if a manager is deemed to have failed due to lacklustre profits and weakening balance sheets, if the stock markets marks the shares higher in the future than now, these clowns will be paid their bonuses and pension enhancements.

This is how the Fred Goodwins on this world get away with blue murder. It's so easy.

Duncan

Why GM Needs Massive Reorganisation

Here's a story I tell quite often even though the full details and source have long since been lost to me. If you know the source of the story I'd be delighted to update my records.

A number of years ago someone asked the major car makers in the USA a very simple question: if you were to make one of all possible combinations of all models of all vehicles you currently make, how long would it take you to do that?

That is, imagine the Dodge Shadow is made as a 1 litre and 1.1 litres and ... 2 litres ... petrol and diesel ... sedan and hatchback ... and so on.

• Toyota responded that it would take them 2.5 days
• GM responded that it would take them 2.5 billion years

Complexity has been the GM watch word for many a long year!

Duncan

Welcome to Duncan's Diacritical Discussion ... DDD2

Welcome to Duncan's Diacritical Discussion (DDD2), a brand new blog that will take the business web by storm.

The purpose of this blog is to tease out from my other blog, Duncan's Diurnal Diatribe (DDD1), the business and accounting things that Iwrite about.

Consequently, you will need to bookmark two blogs now or simply to migrate from DDD1 to DDD2 or even ignore DDD2 altogether if all you need are my insights into modern British life.

Duncan