Action: "Do you micromanage your employees? Start empowering them by making sure they are properly trained to do their jobs, and then give them responsibility to do it. Provide room for failure." Peter F. Drucker
China seems to working hard against this "inevitability". All of the original software service providers doing business in and around the internet have had significant "shackles" put on their freedom of operations in China. Or they have been kicked out and replaced by government supported competitors (Baidu). It will be interesting to see the digital revolution unfold in China over the next ten years.
Example: Closer to home, it certainly came as a surprise to many a railroader when they found out that each car shipment of any commodity shipped by rail was registered in a national database. Anyone with knowledge of rail operations could simulate all movements of all commodities in and out of any shipping point on the national grid in any equipment. Soon every shipping department had models of their commodities being shipped in their own computers. So, when time came to renegotiate rates with the railroads, all of a sudden the previously dis-informed shipper had knowledge of all rates which were like or even similar to their own movements. With a little training, most shipping departments started to dictate shipping rates.
Look at your operations and determine whether operational data is available, but maybe not yet being used. Some of the models which Enron was building to make rates "fungible" were/are pretty interesting in the hands of users and utilities. The data is masked, but not severely so.
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