Alternative to Closing for Legendary Greek Restaurant
The 80 year old owner of Detroit’s oldest Greek restaurant New Hellas Cafe, Gus Anton, is shutting the business down claiming he needs the rest and can’t keep up with it any more. Surely he deserves to retire after 57 years of running the business his father started in 1901. Unfortunately shutting the business down means 35 people lose their jobs. Anton say he hopes the workers will get rehired if the restaurant is sold. He said, “he doesn’t have anyone to take over. His son is ill and one of his grandchildren wants to be a plumber, the other a doctor.”
How about selling it to the employees?
I realize that business has been way down but I suspect the people working there need their jobs and know how to run it without Gus. I also suspect the business is still profitable. I suggest that Mr. Anton either sell the business and the building to the employees or lease it to the employees while he is attempting to sell the building. Since he was planning on closing the doors he doesn’t seem to need the money right away. This would give the loyal worker a chance to improve their lives and save Gus and his family some money, and maybe even make a bit more. Perhaps the employees turned owners have some ideas to make the business more successful.
Venerable Greek restaurant in Detroit to shut doors
New Hellas restaurant closes after 107 years
Finding Gold in the Closet at the Detroit Economic Club
Today when I attended the presentation by Gary Shapiro to the Detroit Economic Club I uncovered opportunities that were being overlooked. Mr. Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronic Association, encouraged Detroit to embrace free trade agreements and use innovation to meet the challenges of increasing competition. He was absolutely correct, however as so many others beating that drum, he failed to explain how to innovate. Many of the attendees left feeling even more pressure.
Oddly enough, everyone of the people I spoke to were using the same failing approach to competition and every single one was overlooking huge profits from using resources they already own. Profits from things they currently considered expenses.
Two companies I spoke with were trying to improve efficiency in hopes of lowering prices. The first was a tool and die company that was implementing 6 Sigma to find ways to improve process efficiencies. This is a good thing. I was one of the founders of using statistical process control (SPC) in the USA back in the 1980s. If the company was typical they could expect 10-30% improvements. This would make many managers very happy. But they were actually wasting their time and energy. They had 4 very expensive machines sitting idle. They were probably losing $400,000 per year in missed revenue. More importantly if they just made $1 more from those machines it would be INFINITE improvement in efficiency. They are currently getting zero efficiency. The machines are collecting dust and wasting space. Any money they make from those machines is infinite increase in efficiency.
Revealing Emerging Expectations, the most important step of innovation.
Emerging expectations are the things customers will start to demand next. These are features, benefits, and values current products are missing but customers haven’t started demanding yet. When customers realize these desires can be met they will demand it from all future products. It’s essential to have something ready when that happens or you will lose customers.
Working on things customers are already asking for puts you in a race with others. If you try to meet existing desires you are in a race against time. Even if you make it to market first, your advantage will quickly disappear. Others will develop competing products, if they haven’t already been working on them. If you don’t have the next product ready your innovation will be overwhelmed with copycats that make improvements on your design.
Revealing emerging expectations allows you to work two steps ahead so you always have the next great thing perfected and ready to release when the demand is strongest and profits are greatest. Plus if you can accurately predict the future innovations you will be able to overwhelm competitors with improvements faster and with less expense than they can copy you. You get ahead, stay ahead, and increase your lead.
Just because you can make it doesn’t mean customers will want it. To get the best return on investment you need to choose the innovations customers will do anything to get. And even if it’s something customers want it doesn’t mean its right for you to sell. So the innovation system you use must reveal a large selection emerging expectations, preferably all, and provide a way for you to compare and rank them in order of value to you.
Many people can think of pie in the sky “futuristic” products. Science fiction is full of those types of ideas. Some of those sci-fi products actually do become real products and are successful. The question is, when? Absolutely predicting the future is impossible but understanding the land marks to watch for gives you the information to plan your actions. If a new product depends on other developments then you should wait for those to be released before releasing yours. You can have everything ready to go and jump into the market at the exact right time. You maximize profits and minimize risk. A complete innovation system shows you those land marks with enough lead time to act.
Revealing the emerging expectations is what makes the OutCompete Predictive Innovation Method predictive and not just another feel good innovation system. The way it does this is by using certain laws of systems that apply to every system. Understanding that every system must follow certain laws allows you to see which things will become “must have innovations” and the order it will occur.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
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