Blog

In just 15 years, GraysOnline's Cameron Poolman turned a $50,000 ecommerce investment into a hugely successful venture. Here's how. By Georgina Jerums

The key to successful online ecommerce is to integrate it into your traditional business model. Don't park it as a stand-alone business with a separate advertising division or your bottom line could haemorrhage. That's Cameron Poolman's take on it. And as CEO of GraysOnline auction house, with 500,000 members and up to 15,000 new members registering each month, he ought to know.

With the skills shortage likely to be an issue for some time, organisations must set up strategies to follow to meet the challenge. Nicholas Currie goes in search of expert help.

If you've sneaked a peek at the job ads recently, you'll understand the predicament for somebody like John Shaw.

The second annual Management Today Top Management Issues survey indicates change in managers' priorities. Chris Sheedy consults on the issues and suggests some tonic to help meet the challenges.

Over the following pages, the six top management issues identified by respondents to the recent Australian Institute of Management (AIM) Management Today Readership Survey are investigated with the help of the insights of experts and real-world situations.

Leadership

Women are natural-born leaders, argues author and executive coach Lois P. Frankel - if only they realised it. By Georgina Jerums

Author and executive coach Lois P. Frankel shoots from the hip when talking to businesswomen. You want the promotion? The corner office? The board seat? For your project ideas to be taken seriously, instead of ignored and later picked up when expressed by a male colleague? Then honey, quit being girlie nice, she says. Right away.

She means it.

It is hard for organisations to determine which coach is right. But doing it right starts with being clear about the problem, and measuring the outcome. By Darren Baguley

The Managing Director of automated document management company ReadSoft, Frank Volckmar, had a problem. One of his senior technical people, a person who prided himself on how much he knew, had a habit that made people feel foolish if they asked him a question.

A passionate advocate for the power of science to better our world, Dr Geoff Garrett, Chief Executive of the CSIRO, has brought about change to the institution. By Jason Day

Many Australians, if asked their opinion of the CSIRO, would no doubt have a generally positive view on the organisation's worth to the nation.
This seems so, even if, as a straw poll around the office indicates, they are unaware of the extent of the work that it does, or how it does it.

Five experts explain how executive coaching works, where it is of most value, and what can happen when things go wrong. By Mark Story

Executive coaching, a relatively new game in Australia, is becoming increasingly customised to cater for a growing range of corporate appetites. It's progressively evolving from a fashionable, one-size-fits-all approach to cure wayward executive behaviour, to an executive tool capable of upskilling key staff and future leaders.

Ambitious managers looking to make a mark need to work on their strengths and weaknesses to enhance their careers. By Fiona Gillies

So you've got a great job and you're good at what you do. You hope to have a long and successful career in management. But how do you make sure you get the career you want?

In this time of low unemployment, finding just another job in management may not in itself be hard. But landing the job you really want isn't always so easy. How do you make sure that you're the person who stands out from the pack?

Like most people, Terry Goodall fondly remembers the motor trips and caravan parks of his youth. Overseeing 172 sites, the CEO of BIG4 Holiday Parks says the industry is growing up fast. By Jason Day

The family car and caravan park form part of sunburnt holiday memories for many Australians. Before cheap airfares, holidays for many meant a car loaded to bursting, dad waking the kids up at 4am to beat the traffic, and a week or two travelling between, or staying in, caravan parks, fishing and swimming.

When the workforce is more mobile than ever, organisations must effectively manage, pass on and exploit critical know-how. By Darren Baguley

Industry giant British Aerospace's Australian subsidiary BAE Systems had a problem: engineering ability was eroding over time because their experienced personnel weren't passing that expertise on to new or less-experienced staff.

Engineers tend to be logical types, so the solution to the problem seemed simple: get people to document their knowledge and put it into databases.