Showing posts with label business models. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business models. Show all posts

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Does management justify its own costs?



Throughout history, the university systems of the world have evolved from a monastic model, through the industrial model as a driver of social mobility, to the latest, which is the ‘business’ model.
Like all models, this one has assumptions. In this case, the underlying but usually unstated one is that the faculty who teach and research, and the people who maintain the buildings, are not working hard enough.
The proposed solution is to add layers of middle managers, whose only contribution is to ‘motivate’ and generate policies to make everything ‘more efficient’.
The sad reality is that no amount of increased efficiency or hard work on the producers of the system can make up for the cost of this increased administration.
A cynic might argue that the only purpose of these changes is to provide jobs for those who can’t do anything productive.


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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Barefoot businesses

Many years ago, China pioneered the idea of "barefoot doctors": cheap physicians with a bagful of the most commonly prescribed medicines, providing a low-cost service to the many. This blog thinks the days of glitzy steel-and chrome offices and hot and cold running secretaries are numbered; the model of the future is the pavement stall and the home garage.

(htp: Jesse)