Stewart McKie

In his book The Art of Action (2011), Stephen Bungay identifies three gaps that frustrate the ability of organizations to translate plans into actions that lead to desired outcomes. He calls them the knowledge, alignment and effects gaps. Here, I wish to reflect on Bungay’s perspective by reviewing these gaps in terms of the selection and implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. ERP software exerts a significant influence over the way an organization manages and monitors its performance. In large organizations, ERP software can touch hundreds, even thousands of people given that today’s ERP software may have a significant organizational footprint encompassing accounting, supply-chain, manufacturing, human resources (HR), customer relationship management (CRM), environmental, social and governance (ESG) and performance management activities. ER... (more)

ContentStores: Linking Offline and Online Bookselling

Today, the world of consumer bookselling is characterized by two polarized business models: Bricks and Clicks – physical retail bookstores and virtual online webstores. The future of consumer bookselling depends on breaking down this polarization and creating a new hybrid business model that exploits combinatorial innovation – the combination of existing concepts and technologies to deliver a business model breakthrough. My aim here is to offer one view of the future of consumer bookselling by considering some key issues and outlining a set of synergistic technologies, then pres... (more)

Ideablogging: Simplified Idea Management

Ideablogs are a new online collaboration tool designed for social idea development. The purpose of this short article is to encourage you to think about using an ideablog to support innovation in your business. I’ll be explaining what an ideablog is and how you can use one to help ensure you have a constant flow of new ideas to think about. What is an Ideablog? An ideablog is a social networking application used to stimulate, capture, promote and enrich ideas online via a blog-style user interface. Ideablogs support online communities of interest that are focused on stimulating a... (more)

The Mobile Web: It's About Footprint

The mobile web's momentum continues unabated with Google's acquisition of AdMob and Apple's Shocking Numbers for iPhone app usage. The whole thing is reminiscent of the introduction of the IBM PC back in 1981(?). Brief memory lane diversion: I sold my first PC system in 1982 and it ran a company's whole accounting system off a single 5.25 inch floppy drive. But reminiscent only in a far-off, Stewart McKienoreply@blogger.com0 ... (more)

3D Accounting Part 4

Not everyone believes in 3D accounting. In their critique of the triple bottom line Getting to the Bottom of the Triple Bottom Line, authors Norman and MacDonald make a number of useful points. But in this post I want to discuss environmental ‘analogues’ based on their point below: But we are also puzzled when we look for conceptual analogies above the bottom line, so to speak. What are the ethical/social equivalents or analogues of, say, revenue, expenses, gains, losses, assets, liabilities, equity, and so on? The kinds of raw data that 3BL and other SEAAR advocates propose to... (more)