Satish’s Home

25 Best kept secrets

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/23/magazines/business2/business2_bestkeptsecrets/index.htm

1. Extreme Benchmarking

   Compare everything you do against your rivals

2. Bad News Folders

   Keep a constant eye out for trouble

3. Strategic Strategy Reviews

   Turn going-through-the-motions meetings into no-holds-barred debates.

4. A New Office Pool

   Use prediction markets to tap hidden knowledge.

5. The Tech Box

   Create a lending library of ideas.

6. Outside-In R&D

   Bring in experts to help spark new ideas.

7. Office Graffiti

   Let workers speak their minds.

8. Surgical Visits

   Seek brutally honest feedback from customers.

9. The Contra Team

   Appoint official devil’s advocates to challenge the merits of deals.
   

10. Equity as You Go

    Take no stake until you earn it.

11. The Chief Shareholder Officer

    Head off shareholder trouble before it starts.
    

12. Always-On Board Members

    Get the directors out of the boardroom.
    

13. The Corporate Beehive

    Use office design to keep the queen in touch with the worker bees.

14. The Job Audition

    Turn the interview process into an all-encompassing tryout.

15. Peer-to-Peer Promotion

    Let employees choose their leaders.

16. The Shrink Shrinker

    Reward workers for keeping their hands off the merchandise.

17. The Anti-Star System

    Determine pay using just two factors: Profits and seniority.
    

18. The Pyramid Scheme

    Use kickbacks–the legal kind–to attract executive talent.
    

19. The Long Goodbye

    Keep retirees in the labor pool.
    

20. The Three-Minute Huddle

    Start each day with a lightning-fast, all-hands briefing.
    

21. Gainsharing

    Pass cost savings on to those who achieved them.
    

22. Open-Source Ad Campaigns

    Let your customers do the marketing.

23. Late-Night Recon

    Turn employees into trendspotters.

24. The “Just Looking” Badge

    Neutralize your customers’ worst fears.
    

25. Phone Shopping

    Become your own customer.
    

Travel Planner idea was realized

Last week, I posted on this business oppurtinity on travel planner. It is very encouraging to see that, some other ppl also got the same idea and went ahead to materialize it. Roshan desilva wrote in his blog about the commencement of new travel portal startups.

1. www.makemytrip.com
2. www.yatraonline.com
3. www.travelguru.com
4. www.cleartrip.com

Out of above, two are under constrution, the other two operational. I checked the features on makemytrip.com. Though, I found the concept of packages they provide interesting, i had different ideas on the services that can be provided to the customers.

Instead of providing only pre defined packages to the customers, i think it would be much more useful if they provided more flexibility to the end user in terms of making their own travel plan. i know it takes lot more effort to provide that level of flexibility to the end user. it could be the next phase of development for them.