New Company - Example: Dyson
The new company when you start isolating out NC values you realise it – you get it if you like – and you start seeing them in all the most unlikely places. You also realise that 100% NC’s are very few and far between, but these are companies which exhibit some of the values and services.
Dyson for example makes a vacuum cleaner. They make an honest vacuum cleaner. It works very well – it doesn’t make money for Dyson on the sale of new bags, but it does make money for them because it is well built and designed, unlike ALL of its competitors. And if it is purely because they (the competitors) came at the problem from the wrong way. They made no real attempt to improve their product over the years, apart from ‘pretty’ colours (debatable) and also pretty horrid design changes to the cases. But the core ‘engine’ if you like – ‘the business end’ – was unchanged, and well, frankly, wore out after about one year, if that. It is an example of old style capitalism with obsolescence built right in. With the customers just a revenue stream. And having any idea of customer service or giving them what they really want, which is a vacuum that picks up dirt and continues to do so. Now Dyson the company does this very well – but some of its employees may not agree with you – the ones made redundant when production moved to the Far East from England. Not very NC for the England workers! So I would say that Dyson displays in its products the spirit of NC, but in its relationship with its workers then I’m not so sure.
Powerpoint and the NC (or NOT)
Envisioning Information is a book that I skim read a few years ago. It is by an author called Edward Tufte. Tufte argues and designs well, he is one of those people who seem to be able to produce art, sculpture, statistics anything – and also talk about it well. Tufte argues that Powerpoint is a modern evil – a tool used badly by lazy people to try to present information. Try is the operative word because it is a dreadful medium – Tufte argues that the information is not dense enough – there just isn’t enough information and the ideas are not linked together. There is no context. And people just end up reading out everything on every slide. Terrible. Printed paper has about 1000 times more information – and it’s easier to read, copy, carry about and share, (at the moment). You would be better off printing out your presentation on a large piece of paper and handing that to everyone. Good ideas. The New Company (NC) should not just use Powerpoint slides as a basis for meetings and presentations. They should use a higher density medium (although I don’t agree with all that printed paper!)
NC’s concentrate on other things.
I have noticed that something which marks the NC is the fact that they tend to concentrate on one thing – and also do it well. They don’t tend to spread themselves too thinly. Once a company spreads too thin they seem to lose that excellent customer service.
New Companies (NC's)
“New companies are happy places to work. NC’s are nice to their employees as well as being nice to their customers. They don’t unnecessarily pollute the environment. They don’t produce stuff just for the quick buck. They provide a quality service product. This may sound utopian – and why not? It should serve to improve the human experience, and if it doesn’t – why then, it should not be done.
Innocent Smoothies are a NC. They give the customer what they want – good smoothies – and they do it in a fun way (enhancing and improving the human experience) whilst also being nice to their employees (also enhancing the human experience). No company should devalue its employees.
Google is a company which values its employees, it looks after them, feeds them well, gets a doctor to check them out, gives them toys to play with – anything which will make them feel good. They work hard – often long hours – and I think that Google benefits from its hard work looking after its people with the respect and loyalty and hard work in return from its employees.
The concept of the “New Company” (NC)
What is a “new company?” Well, they aren’t necessarily new in the sense that they’ve just been formed. They could be quite an old or established company. No – a “new” company is one that thinks and acts in new ways. Just what does that entail?
So what companies are “new” companies? (or businesses)
- Microsoft (provisional
- Google
- Innocent Smoothies Ltd
- Apple?
- The Lounge (Bedminster)
- Dyson? (provisional)
- Patagonia (clothing company
What do they do? They give people what they want. Good service. That is the key. Without all of the ‘secret’ hidden stuff that others do – The ones who charge for all the hidden extras, or stuff you don’t want – who have employees who seem to have joined straight after the Ark – whose idea of customer service is to do the least amount possible
