Oh! Willie, Willie!

I've found another Stuart Rose: remember Rose is that unusual man in charge of Marks and Spencer about whom I have written quite a bit.

Well, here's another man in the same mould: Willie Walsh, boss of British Airways.

Over the summer Walsh asked his staff to work for nothing for a month. He needed to save £1 billion and his initiative saved around £10 MILLION.

Anyway, he has gone one better. Taking a leaf from the low cost airlines' book, Walsh is reported to be wanting anyone who wants to pre book their seat to have to pay for the privilege. No one wants to do that. NO ONE!

Hold on, it gets worse: he even wants business class passengers to pay as much as £70 to pre book their seat!! Remember, while you and I pay, say, £200 - £500 for a medium/long haul seat, business class passengers might be paying £1,000 - £5,000 for their seat. Does any rational person think that asking those people to pay even more for less value is an attractive addition to their business model?

Remember also that he is doing this at a time when business class passengers are relatively scarce. What is this man thinking?

Time for a change? I'll do it!

Duncan Williamson

The Bonus Culture

As the members of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh are about to come to some decision on executive pay and bonuses, I prepared a report for a client on the topic of what I called the bonus culture.

I think it is a good essay that is full of the key ideas with some of my own observations. It is also up to date and thought provoking.

Go here to read what I have written: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/bonus_culture.html

 

Duncan Williamson

Excel 2007 with Excel Master

It's official: I can now reveal the address of my new web site. This is the web site for my up and coming book which will be called Excel 2007 with Excel Master.

The site is up and running but it is a work in progress at the time of writing. There are some good and useful things there already but there are going to be a lot more.

The book is more than half written now and it's going well.

Take a look at the web site: www.excelmaster.co.uk

Let me have your feedback and let me have your ideas: if there's something you want me to do, let me know and I'll do it if I can.

Duncan Williamson

Oh, Oh! I'm in trouble

Read this semi serious executive summary from the Harvard Business School.

Executive Summary:

The notion of levying higher taxes on tall people—an idea offered largely tongue in cheek—presents an ideal way to highlight the shortcomings of current tax policy and how to make it better. Harvard Business School professorMatthew C. Weinzierl looks at modern trends in taxation. Key concepts include:

• Studies show that each inch of height is associated with about a 2 percent higher wage among white males in the United States.
• If we as a society are uncomfortable taxing height, maybe we should reconsider our comfort level for taxing ability (as currently happens with the progressive income tax).
• For Weinzierl, the key to explaining the apparent disconnect between theory and intuition starts with the particular goal for tax policy assumed in the standard framework. That goal is to minimize the total sacrifice borne by those who pay taxes.
• Behind the scenes, important trends are evolving in tax policy. Value-added taxes, for example, are generally seen as efficient by tax economists, but such taxes can bear heavily on the poor if not balanced with other changes to the system.

Don't believe that I got that from the HBS? Go to this web site then. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6258.html 

Duncan Williamson

This could be the last time

Here is a post from my Personal Blog: Duncan's Diurnal Diatribe at http://duncanwil.blogspot.com

I am reviewing my online presence as I am now running three web sites. www.duncanwil.co.uk, my original web site; www.excelmaster.co.uk is NEW and I am putting a lot of effort into it; www.oxbow.org.uk is being allowed to die as it was a commercial venture that didn't work I'm afraid.

I also manage two blogs: this one and Duncan's Diacritical Discussion, my business blog.

I have been checking the world's response to this blog and it is woeful: I am gathering readership figures now but no one is linking to it and there are only two followers. If the readership is as low as I fear it might be, this blog will cease to be by the end of this month if not sooner!

In spite of that I do enjoy putting the blog together and will probably continue to do that privately if this one has to go.

My business blog will probably stay as I want to use a blog with excelmaster.co.uk. Alternatively, the business blog will go and a new one, based on Microsoft Excel, will replace it.

DW