In the Internet environment, speed is key to survival. To move fast, you have to strike alliances and make decisions on the fly. In FastAlliances -- Power Your E-Business, Larraine Segil refers to those attributes as "skinny process." A classic example, she writes, is Flextronics International, a contract-electronics manufacturer with more than $8.5 billion in annual revenues and a growth rate of more than 60%. With customers including Cisco, Ericsson, and Lucent, the firm's business is built on partnerships.
How does Flextronics manage to stay skinny? In FastAlliances, CEO Michael Marks explains.
Match your customers' pace. "Our company is very responsive. . . . We are a traditional brick and mortar company but we do operate with many of the principles of the click companies. . . . If it wasn't for us, many of them could not fulfill what they promise."
Delegate spending authority. "There is over $100 million of capital spending per quarter at Flextronics -- and none of it gets to me. A plant manager can make a decision to spend $2 million. . . . My philosophy is that once you have more than one signature for signoff, there is no value added. . . . So if I am not here, nothing changes, people still keep on making their own decisions."
Meet less, do more. "We don't believe in a lot of meetings either. People move fast and are not bogged down. My experience with meetings is that for the first 15 minutes everyone is talking about the project and the next 45 minutes are spent talking about how to get sign off to do it."
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