by Stuart Cross | Mar 27, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: When I worked for Boots the Chemists, the UK’s largest pharmacy chain and health and beauty retailer, the company ran a major supply chain initiative. It was a multi-year programme and one of the key changes was a huge new warehouse, which was...
by Stuart Cross | Mar 23, 2020 | Business Rocks, Strategy
Last week, I shared the outline of my 6-Day Strategy process, which gives a fast, focused but robust approach to setting a compelling strategy for your business. The first question that any strategy review needs to answer is, “What is happening here?” and so the first...
by Stuart Cross | Mar 20, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: At this stage, no-one quite knows how long the coronavirus will last, let alone the time it will take for life and the economy to return to ‘normal’. One thing’s for sure, though: the businesses that will recover best will be those that...
by Stuart Cross | Mar 13, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: The UK government’s approach to managing the impact of the coronavirus is controversial. Critics say that it is too relaxed and that the government has failed to get a proper grip. And then they point to the more draconian measures that have...
by Stuart Cross | Mar 6, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: As the US presidential race gets into gear, I see that many people are bemoaning the fact that all the leading candidates – Trump, Sanders and Biden – are white men in their 70s. The ‘pale, male and stale’ accusations are coming thick and...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 28, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: I’m involved in SportsAid, a charity which supports up and coming athletic talent and helps to fund the UK’s future Olympic stars. Earlier this week, I attended an event where the charity had invited around 60 parents of some young athletes to...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 21, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: We’ve been on a family holiday this week, skiing in France. We know the resort well, but have had several days when low cloud, heavy fog and poor visibility has limited our ability to ski at full speed. In fact, even on the pistes we’ve skied...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 14, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: The desire for instant results in both personal and business life is endemic. Want to lose weight, find a new relationship, get rich or become a social media star? No problem, there are millions of people promoting something to help you do...
by Stuart Cross | Feb 7, 2020 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: Sustainability has been on the corporate agenda for two decades or more. Yet, while some companies have brought sustainability into the core of their business, for most, sustainability still sits at the periphery of the organisation. It’s...
by Stuart Cross | Dec 23, 2019 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: I don’t know about you, but I find it almost impossible to name my favourite piece of music. There are just so many contenders. Off the top of my head, Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, Common People by Pulp, Life on Mars? by David Bowie,...
by Stuart Cross | Dec 13, 2019 | Business Rocks
This week’s focus: When I first became the Head of Strategy for Boots the Chemists in 2000, the UK retailer had just found itself in the middle of a supermarket price war. From a position where Boots had slightly higher prices than the Tesco, Asda and the other...
by Stuart Cross | Dec 6, 2019 | Business Rocks
The garden in our new house is quite large and has many mature trees. It looks great most of the time, but has one drawback: falling leaves. From October through to January, the leaves continue to rain down onto the lawn, patios and driveways. In the past couple of...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 29, 2019 | Business Rocks
In recent days I’ve seen videos on social media of colour-blind people putting on glasses that allow them, for the first time, to see and appreciate colour. The effect is profound and their reaction is emotional; it’s clear that these people’s view...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 22, 2019 | Business Rocks
I’m at a funny age – again – it seems. This year has seen a high in the number of people I know that have retired. Brothers, friends, ex-colleagues are all in the process of swapping their daily commute for a life on the golf course or...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 15, 2019 | Business Rocks
I have been playing the guitar for 37 years. And, to be honest, for 35 or more of those years, I haven’t improved. Over that time, I’ve probably had no more than 10 lessons and so it shouldn’t really surprise me that my attempts at...
by Stuart Cross | Nov 8, 2019 | Business Rocks
Why do over 60% of transformation efforts fail? The reasons are many and varied – cost, excessive complication, insufficient in-house capability and trading downturns are all possible causes. But one reason that is never mentioned is, in my experience,...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 25, 2019 | Business Rocks
I once saw a Dilbert cartoon with the following line: “Stretch goals are like stretch pants, they’re a sign you’ve given up hope.” I thought about that cartoon when Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, first made his commitment to a deadline...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 18, 2019 | Business Rocks
Last week, Sir James Dyson announced that he was scrapping his company’s electric car project. His decision was criticized in the media and described as a ‘humbling U-turn.’ I disagree. Yes, the decision represented a U-turn, but it was far from...
by Stuart Cross | Oct 4, 2019 | Business Rocks
Our eldest son is due to sit his A-Levels next summer. He’s previously crammed for his exams, but that approach is proving less successful over time. As a result, I’m trying to help him to create a daily routine of learning. For example, he’s...
by Stuart Cross | Sep 27, 2019 | Business Rocks
This is the 200th edition of Business Rocks, which I launched five years ago (following 150 editions of a previous newsletter called Friday Focus). We have a little over 1,000 subscribers (plus those who read it through social media) to Business Rocks – up from...
