One day I was talking with one of our best engineers, an employee I’ll call John. Before the layoffs, he’d managed three engineers, but now he was a one-man department working very long hours. I told John I hoped to hire some help for him soon. His response surprised me. “There’s no rush—I’m happier now,” he said. It turned out that the engineers we’d laid off weren’t spectacular—they were merely adequate. John realized that he’d spent too much time riding herd on them and fixing their mistakes. “I’ve learned that I’d rather work by myself than with subpar performers,” he said. His words echo in my mind whenever I describe the most basic element of Netflix’s talent philosophy: The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else.

The second conversation took place in 2002, a few months after our IPO. Laura, our bookkeeper, was bright, hardworking, and creative. She’d been very important to our early growth, having devised a system for accurately tracking movie rentals so that we could pay the correct royalties. But now, as a public company, we needed CPAs and other fully credentialed, deeply experienced accounting professionals—and Laura had only an associate’s degree from a community college. Despite her work ethic, her track record, and the fact that we all really liked her, her skills were no longer adequate. Some of us talked about jury-rigging a new role for her, but we decided that wouldn’t be right.

So I sat down with Laura and explained the situation—and said that in light of her spectacular service, we would give her a spectacular severance package. I’d braced myself for tears or histrionics, but Laura reacted well: She was sad to be leaving but recognized that the generous severance would let her regroup, retrain, and find a new career path. This incident helped us create the other vital element of our talent management philosophy: If we wanted only “A” players on our team, we had to be willing to let go of people whose skills no longer fit, no matter how valuable their contributions had once been. Out of fairness to such people—and, frankly, to help us overcome our discomfort with discharging them—we learned to offer rich severance packages.
Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr

Nestlé Australia has unveiled a $65 million upgrade to its site in the NSW central west town of Blayney, extending the capabilities of the plant and creating around 100 additional full time jobs.

The latest upgrade brings the total investment to nearly $100 million since 2011, making it a state-of-the-art pet food facility.

The new facility, officially opened today, will produce ‘wet’ pet food to be sold in pouches in Australia and exported to countries such as Japan, China and ASEAN markets. 

It’s expected the new plant will boost the factory’s annual production to over 100,000 tonnes.

More than 80 per cent of raw materials used at the factory are sourced domestically, including meat, grains and packaging, with a strong focus on buying ingredients from within the local region. 

The latest upgrade, which has taken almost two years to complete, includes the installation of world-class production equipment, a 5,400 square metre warehouse, and an upgrade to the Research and Development facility, putting the Nestlé Purina PetCare Blayney factory at the forefront of innovation. 

In unveiling the upgrade Federal Member for Calare, Mr John Cobb, said the investment was a huge confidence boost for regional Australia.

“To have the world’s biggest food company make this kind of investment into Blayney reinforces the economic stability of Calare and NSW – it shows that we are ready and willing to do business to help create jobs and security for our people,” Mr Cobb said.

“We are extremely pleased that Nestlé Purina PetCare has decided to make its Blayney factory one of the most technologically advanced among its many manufacturing sites globally – we are very encouraged by the ongoing investment that the company is making in this region,” he said.

Nestlé Purina PetCare President Rafael Lopez said that the plant was an investment in the nutrition, health and wellness of pets.

“This technology has the capability and flexibility to create demand for a premium product, with the taste profile pets prefer, with the simplicity of packaging and serving their owners prefer, and with the outstanding balanced nutrition needed to help pets live happier, healthier and longer lives,” Mr Lopez said.

Nestlé Purina PetCare Vice President Operations Suleman Khan said that bringing the best in technology to the facility, combined with the passion and technical know-how of the Blayney team, was key to ensuring future success.

“It’s important that manufacturing facilities remain competitive to ensure future investment within the region,” Mr Khan said.

“That means bringing together the right factory, in the right location, making the right products, at the best cost,” Mr Khan said.

Between 2011 and 2015 more than 100 new full time jobs have been added to the existing 200 employees of the Nestlé Purina PetCare factory. As well, an additional 80 contract positions were required during construction. 

The Nestlé Purina PetCare factory, which began operation in 1989, manufactures a wide range of products including dry cat and dog food such as Supercoat, Beneful, Lucky Dog, Pro Plan and Friskies for domestic and export markets.
Retrieved from http://www.nestle.com.au/media/pressreleases/nestle-purina-petcare-creates-100-jobs-and-invests-65m-in-nsw-central-west

The blimp-style machine would fly at heights between 500 feet and 1,000 feet (as much as 305 meters), contain multiple launching bays, and be operated autonomously or by a remote human pilot. Amazon was granted a patent for a similar vessel in April 2016.

The migration to the skies represents the latest volley in a clash between Wal-Mart and Amazon to grab shoppers’ attention, loyalty and dollars. In the process, the companies are increasingly treading on the other’s turf: Amazon is opening physical stores and agreed to pay $13.7 billion for upscale grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has beefed up its e-commerce business through acquisitions and offers like free two-day shipping.

An unmanned airborne warehouse -- laden with drones -- could help retailers lower the costs of fulfilling online orders, particularly the so-called “last mile” to a customer’s house, which is usually handled by a local or national logistics company. To avoid that expense, Wal-Mart and other retailers often encourage shoppers to pick up those orders at the store, where they might grab a few additional items. Earlier this week, Target Corp. agreed to acquire a software company that coordinates local deliveries.

“The core challenge of traffic and driving distance in any major city or in a very rural location can be helped by a floating warehouse,” said Brandon Fletcher, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “Movable warehouses are a really nice idea because any flexible part of a logistics system allows it to be more efficient when demand varies wildly. The e-commerce world suffers from highly variable demand and more creative solutions are needed.”

A movable warehouse could serve a wider distribution area, Fletcher said, compared with a traditional warehouse that can only fill orders within a fixed driving distance. The airship could fly to one town and release a flock of drones to deliver packages, after which the drones would return to the vessel and restock while it flew to the next town. Such a system would be more efficient than having the drones fly back to a central distribution hub, according to research firm CB Insights.

“There are numerous ways to distribute and deliver products,” according to Wal-Mart’s patent application. “Getting the product to a delivery location, however, can cause undesirable delays, can add cost and reduce revenue.”

Wal-Mart’s application stands a good chance of getting approved as it goes into more detail about the implementation of a gas-filled aircraft than Amazon’s patent, which is a more general description of the concept of airborne-delivery systems, according to Khaled Fekih-Romdhane, managing partner at patent-licensing firm Longhorn IP.
Retrieved from http://www.mhlnews.com/technology-automation/wal-marts-amazon-war-takes-skies-floating-warehouses

Which is a shame, because it happens to be untrue.

Of course: and the company will likely become something of a case study for anyone even remotely connected with a start-up. (In fact, it's already there).

But the real lessons come from studying the role Blockbuster played in its own demise. Granted, the company had problems—including a massive physical footprint that made it very difficult to pivot to a new business model. But it also had something that Netflix didn't: an existing customer base and strong brand recognition. Had the firm recognized Netflix as a threat early enough—or paid heed to changing consumption patterns—it could have fought the company off. Or just acquired it.

So what can those seeking to prevent an existing company from meeting a similar fate take from the case—other than a fatalistic view that their demise is inevitable?

Well, as already suggested, the major lesson is that it didn't have to happen that way. And the minor lessons essentially come down to paying attention beyond the confines of your own company:

One of the problems with working within an industry for any length of time is that you can get bogged down in the details of that industry, and lose a sense of how the bigger picture affects what you do. While there's no easy remedy for that, keeping up with news and perspectives from outside your industry—whether they come from people in other areas of your company, or from somewhere else entirely.

Obviously the folks at Blockbuster knew every nuance of the movie rental business. What they didn't grasp was the transformative power of the internet. Had they had more of a grasp on emerging technology, they might well have been able to stave off the threat from Netflix before it emerged.

It's difficult to compare Blockbuster's position in the 1990s to its subsequent decline and not come to the conclusion that complacency played a big role. While there's no one way to ensure that you're not falling victim to the same kind of thinking, treating any potential competitor as a threat is a good starting place. And figuring out what it is customers like about that competitor can be a good starting point for overhauling your own business model to ensure that it doesn't become obsolete.
Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/id/39383623

Q1: What Industry was Blockbuster a part of?
Q2: Why did Blockbuster go out of business?
Q3: Was this inevitable?
Q4: Do you think poor business operations had something to do with blockbusters demise?
Q5: Would an Entrepreneur have been able to save Blockbuster? (Think about qualities entrepreneurs possess).
Q6: List three Competitive Advantages that Blockbuster could have used to avoid going bankrupt?
Q7: If you could have had a say in Blockbuster before it went out of business, what sort of innovative changes would YOU have suggested? Why?