Archive | 2012

Social networking can alleviate drug shortages

From mid 2010 on, reports of chronic shortages of medication in the U.S.  (see here and here) and Canada (examples here and here)  particularly Generic medication – surfaced in the online press as well as conventional media (newspapers and TV) reaching unprecedented near-panic levels. Two years later, this structural problem of the pharmaceutical industry is still […]

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The lack of reliability of Generic Pharma supply chains

Most industries have gone through several typical waves of transformation in the past 20+ years, namely customer centricity, consolidation and globalization. They haven’t all happened at the same time but for the older industries – e.g., Banking and Telecommunications – they took place largely in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Generic Pharmaceuticals is a relatively […]

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Processes and Social Networking in the Enterprise – are they complimentary?

I wrote elsewhere that the hierarchical structures of the industrial-age command and control organizations is outdated and we should replace it with networks of multi-disciplinary cells of individuals functioning as dynamic ‘swarms’, spontaneously combining their skills to respond to the challenges of work life. I also wrote that organizations should be process driven, i.e., have […]

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The beauty of Process-Driven Organizations

Have you ever been in a meeting with 2 dozen people for 2 hours and noticed that, throughout the meeting, 4 or 5 people talked and everybody else was quiet? In large meetings, this is actually the norm: 20% of people are active and the rest are passive. And have you experienced meetings with lots […]

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The Power of Spontaneous Associaton in the workplace

Many of us come across this challenge: take a traditional command and control, vertically integrated organization and make it nimble and fast. It may be that you manage an operation; or that you’re involved in an ERP project; or maybe you’re just part of some continuous improvement initiative. If you’ve faced that kind of challenge, […]

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