Does the "Sustainability" strategy always have to include "growth"?

Over the past 10 years business schools at the university level have been promoting how to find the idea of "sustainability" in regards to a company's success. They are saying "sustainability" should be a strategy that businesses leaders incorporate in their modus of operandi, especially for new and small businesses.

Sustainability is a good strategy to have as it relates to survival of the company in both the short and long term. However, something that is puzzling me is how a company's "growth" strategy always creeps into a company's sustainability strategy. Does growth have to always be in the company's strategy to make it sustainable?

I sure hope it is not the case, as I believe too many companies have a growth strategy that hurts the overall economy and thus kills the sustainability of the majority of companies currently in operation. The strategy of growth found in most companies today actual is a determinent to the overall world economy, as well as the state and local city economies.

The growth predictament that business leaders put themselves in is that they either grow or cease to exist. In this sense, implementing their growth strategy produces similar outcomes that are seen in pricing wars caused by low price strategies. No company wins when they enter a pricing war. The customer wins in the short term. However, it is only in the short term as the companies cease to exist in the long term to be able to provide any benefit the customers longer than the short term.

In some cases the pricing war strategy is a result of a growth strategy as companies try to grow. To do so they lower their prices to move more product and increase their customer base.

In my opinion, sustainability is a good thing; mandatory growth is a bad thing. Over the next 10-15 years, as big box companies are driven by investor's short sightness of growth now, it will be interesting to see if small companies will have to grow to stay "sustainable". Or will we see small companies succomb to the large companies -- with these large companies eventually letting their customers down, and ultimately endung up with displeased investors.

This relates to GolfInvestors in that investors are the ones that are driving the manadatory growth strategies of companies today -- it is not hte business manager. Investors want to see the largest profit margin possible tomorrow or in the coming quarter. Investors today are not concerned with building long term value in the company and for the customer. They are not good managers of a business (or they would be in the company managing it), and thus want to get the biggest return possible in the coming quarter -- very short term thinking.

To nuture a small business so it is sustainable, investors need to take a hiatus of receiving profits in the short term so that the possibility of their cumulative returns in the long term will be higher.

If investors that invest on the GolfInvestor stock markets take the attitude of milking their investment in a golfer in the short term or want immediate returns, then the GolfInvestor concept is probably not a valid proposition. Yes, the GolfInvestors concept provides investors with near real-time financial results and direct access to the golfer. However, that does not mean investors should react on every new tidbit of information they have access to. They should pool the information so they make long term decisions. They should use real-time information to constantly modify their long term investing strategies, not to manage the golfer or run a company. Running the company is up to the expert business manger. In the case of GolfInvestors, this is the golfer, the investment which the investors are putting their faith into. If investors try to over manage a golfer most likely the golfer will get fed up with investors driving them into the ground and thus not realize their potential. Or worse yet, the golfer will quit their pursuit to play golf professionally. Then both the investor and the golfer are out of luck.

Investors on GolfInvestors need to act more like a "supporter" of the golfer, not a critic of the golfer. I am hoping investors on GolfInvestors will take this attitude when investing in a golfer rather than being out for the quick profit on their investment. I am hoping investors will nuture the golfers and their potential return in the short term so both the investors and golfers realize a larger return in the long term.

Golf CLi RSS Feeds and on Cell Phone

Last week I did some work on the Golf CLi web site (golfcli.com) to make the site's data more accessible to users. For those of you who are not familar with the Golf CLi web site, it is a web site spin off of GolfInvestors to promote the Golf CLi (confidence level indicator) variable. The Golf CLi is a variable used to help users pick their fantasy golf teams.

What I did this past week is to make the data of the golfcli.com web site more accessible to users by adding an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) Feed of the site and creating a WAP (wireless access protocol) version of the site for cell phone accessibility.

With the RSS Feed of the Golf CLi, users can now get the Golf CLi updates through their RSS Readers. This means data is "pushed" (sent) to users rather than them having to check the web site to see if an update has been made. When updates are made, they are pushed to the user's RSS Reader.

The RSS Feed can be found at the following location:

http://golfinvestors.com/external/rss_tournament_field_analysis.php

The golfcli.com site has more instructions on how to call the feed with various variables to customize it so users can filter the Golf CLi data according to their needs.

As well, users can be sitting in a coffee shop now and check the Golf CLi via their cell pone. They can get this information where and when they want, which is usually when they are picking the golfers for their fantasy team in any given week. This could easily be done drinking a latte with friends at a local coffee shop

The Golf CLi web site can be accessed via a cell phone using the main url of the site: http://golfcli.com. The site will determine if the user is using a WAP browser and then redirect the user automatically to the WAP version of the Golf CLi web site.

The Golf CLi web site shows the current week's tournaments, starting each Tuesday. Go to the Golf CLi web site to learn more.

Enjoy.

The 'Same, Previous, Following Week Tournaments' pull-down menu

Something that GolfInvestors offers users that is not seen on other golf sites is a pull-down menu on the tournament pages called the "Same, Previous, Following Week Tournaments" pull-down menu. This pull-down menu is seen on a tournament's page and presents to users a list of tournaments that were playing during the current, previous, and following weeks of the tournament they are viewing. This feature allows users to be able to flip through and see what other tournaments were played during the same time the tournament they are viewing was played. As well, they can see a list of tournaments played in the previous week and the following week.

Here is a sample of the contents of the "Same, Previous, Following Week Tournaments" pull-down menu when viewing the 2006 FBR Open (Feb 2-5, 2006) tournament page:

Same Week Tournaments
...FBR Open
...Dubai Desert Classic
Previous Week Tournaments
...Buick Invitational
...The Commercial Bank Qatar Masters
...Movistar Panama Championship
...Turtle Bay Championship
Following Week Tournaments
...AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am
...Johnnie Walker Classic
...Wendy's Champions Skins Game

Source url: http://golfinvestors.com/tournaments/tournament.php?id=1155 (2006 FBR Open)

The contents of the pull-down menu tells the user that the Dubai Desert Classic is also being played during the same week of the FBR Open. As well, the Buick Invitational, The Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, the Movistar Panama Championship, and the Turtle Bay Championshiop were played in the week leading up to the FBR Open. Then it tells the user the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am, the Johnnie Walker Classic, and the Wendy's Champions Skins Game were played the week after the FBR Open.

By selecting any of these tournaments in the pull-down menu the user is able to quickly go to the details of these tournaments. This is handy to users if they are viewing a current week's tournament as they are able to quickly jump to the web page of these other relevant tournaments. It is even more handy when doing research on historical tournaments to see what tournaments were played in the current, following, and previous weeks of the tournament they are viewing. It gives the user a perspective of the tournament results, not to mention an easy and quick means to get information without having to go back to the entire tournament schedule list page.

This is just a minor feature added to the GolfInvestors site last year to help users use the site to research and quickly navigate through the site to find the information they are looking for.

Is this feature useful? Or is it "bloating" the Gi site?