Simpler Business Institute

Evidence from around the world points to the fact that no business is immune from complexity - from startups, to small-medium businesses and to the major corporations - and this complexity is making it more and more difficult to achieve success.

The Institute has been established to transfer to owners and managers the techniques to help them develop simpler businesses that are easier to manage and give far better returns. While a simple business is rare, it's not that hard to make a business simpler and get the people and profit benefits from this. The main barrier is often a mental blockage to accepting that something relatively simple can have such a major impact on improving a business. This is just the universal 80/20 Rule that we encounter all day, every day! Give it a go - you've got nothing to lose.

I grew up in country Australia, finished high school in Michigan US and graduated from Mining & Metallurgical Engineering at the University of Queensland, Australia. As a young metallurgical engineer, my work often involved looking for cost reduction through simplification of the processes where I worked. These included a project for Alcoa and General Motors in the US auto industry (which became my Master of Engineering thesis), alloy and process development for Norsk Hydro in Norway, and a production improvement project for Palmer Tube Mills in Australia (which was my PhD thesis).

The concepts and techniques of Simpler Business have developed over the duration of my career, initially as an engineer then as a manager. For those readers who have an interest in the defining moments, or perhaps defining projects, of my Simpler Business journey, here are the few key milestones that made me think twice about keeping things simple.