On Friday, Steve Jobs and other Apple executives held a press conference to address concerns about the antenna performance of the iPhone 4.  From the reports I read, it seems to me that Jobs struck a good balance of caring for customers, listening to criticism, and standing up for the quality work of his team. [...]

Apple · challenges · customers · leadership · quality · service · values

The New York Times reported last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not happy with Johnson & Johnson’s handling of quality problems at its McNeil Consumer Healthcare subsidiary.  The FDA made its displeasure known in testimony before Congress. According to the article, “On April 30, McNeil voluntarily recalled more than 136 million [...]

customers · excellence · Johnson & Johnson · leadership · quality · values

Steel is the “bone” of industrialisation.  As a material and as an industry, it has been at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the development of the modern global industrial economy.   Steel made railroads, skyscrapers, suspension bridges, and steamships possible.  The industrial leadership of the “West” has had 150 years to get this [...]

ArcelorMittal · community · culture · emerging markets · global · leadership · profit · quality · sustainability · value · values

Toyota (Akio Toyoda, CEO), has had some well-advertised problems over the last year: problems with sticky accelerators that caused accidents, some fatal; the recall of 6 million vehicles, fines from U.S. regulators, and a number of lawsuits related to all this.   From what I saw, Toyota’s executives did not at first put on an [...]

challenges · culture · customers · innovation · leadership · quality · Toyota